TVSquad

7-Eleven stores are cleaning up on merchandising for The Simpsons Movie, which hits theaters on Friday. Since the beginning of this month, the convenience store chain has been selling millions of Simpsons items such as KrustyO's, Buzz Cola, Squishees, Radioactive Man comics, and Sprinklicious doughnuts. And 12 of its outlets have actually been transformed into Kwik-E-Marts, just like on the show.

The Simpsons merch, by the numbers:

• 960,000 cans of Buzz Cola
• 1.1 million Squishees
• 880,400 Sprinklicious doughnuts
• More than 3.4 million units of Simpsons swag

I joined the mass consumerism stampede and bought KrustyO's, Buzz Cola, a comic, and a Squishee (man, those things are pure sugar - blech!). I think it might've been the first time I ever went into a 7-Eleven. What did you buy?

Earlier this year, we told you about a possible advertising deal brewing between the producers of The Simpsons Movie and 7-Eleven. Well, that advertising deal is now a reality; to promote the movie, which is opening on July 27, selected 7-Eleven outlets have been changed into Kwik-E-Marts, in what the chain called its "most massive and complex" promotion ever.

AdAge.com details what's been changed in the promotion, which runs until the end of the month. The signs out front will be different, of course, but a series of Simpsons-branded products will be sold in the store, including Buzz Cola and Krusty-Os cereal. Even the Slurpees will be called Squishees.

Now here's a case of synergy I can get behind: According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 7-Eleven is in talks with the producers of The Simpsons Movie to convert eleven of the company's stores into Kwik-E-Marts in a promotional stunt. The converted stores would sell items that Apu Nahasapeemapetilon might sell in his fictional store, like Krusty-Os, Buzz Cola, and Squishies (lucky for the 7-11 folks that they have a very similar product, huh?). Also the images of Simpsons characters would be placed on other 7-11 products on sale, like their deli sandwiches (with Homer going "mmmm... sandwiches," of course).

It's a pretty interesting idea, if they do it for a limited time, like maybe for two weeks before the movie's July 27 opening and maybe for a week afterwards. Any longer, and those temporary Kwik-E-Mart signs are just going to look kinda sad. And, hopefully, they won't sell the Krusty-Os with the free jagged metal O inside. That's just asking for trouble.

[via Netscape. Thanks to sister site Gadling for the funny composite picture.]