With each Gulp, 7-Elections tracks voting trend for polls

On a sunny afternoon, 18-year-old student Mara Francisco walked from her home in Don Antonio, Quezon City to the nearest 7-Eleven branch. She picked up a sandwich and a juice drink with her chosen presidential candidate's face on the cup. “I’ve been buying drinks in this cup since summer started and I think I’ve already contributed a lot to [my candidate’s] tally," she said. “It’s a fun way to participate in the elections." In March, 24-hour convenience store 7-Eleven launched the 7-Elections promotion, an informal poll for the presidential candidates running for the 2010 elections using their in-house cup Gulp. Instead of their signature red, the Gulp drink cups now come in different colors, bearing the faces and signature colors of the nine presidential candidates. 7-Elections is a new promotion that the company implemented in the Philippines only now, but the same concept has been used in the past three US elections. “The winners in the three 7-Elections held in the US were the same winners in the elections," said Philippine Seven Corporation Category Manager James Ranada. “Obama won in 7-Elections and also won the actual elections, so we’re hoping that the same thing happens here." Ranada added that the results of their informal poll are similar to the trending in surveys conducted by long-time pollsters Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia.

“I want to stress the fact that in the latest survey, Noynoy Aquino got 37%. This week, Noynoy got 38% in our tally. That shows that our poll, although informal, has a sense of accuracy as well," he said. Since the promotion launch, Liberal party standard bearer Noynoy Aquino has been leading by a wide margin. But unlike surveys done by known pollsters, admin bet Gilberto Teodoro comes in second, while Nacionalista Party bet Manny Villar comes in third. Bagumbayan standard bearer Richard Gordon is fourth in their tally, while former President Joseph Estrada ranks fifth. One of the cups that contained the option “abstain" for undecided voters ranked 6th and was chosen by over 37,000 people. Trailing the race in 7th to 10th place respectively are Bro. Eddie Villanueva, Jamby Madrigal, JC de los Reyes and Nicanor Perlas, who all share one cup. Ranada said they only made individual cups for the five leading presidential candidates when they printed the cups in January. But he stressed that 7-Eleven made sure that all presidential candidates are represented, so each candidate is given a unique bar code. The bar code records the customer's "vote" for a particular candidate upon payment of any drink in a Gulp cup, a 7-11 brand, at the counter. When the attendant punches the unique bar code assigned to the candidate on the cup, the machine automatically records the cup bought for the candidate in a particular branch and consolidates the tally from more than 400 7-Eleven branches nationwide. Results per branch are posted above the counter, and the consolidated results are graphed and geotagged on their website. Noynoy, Gibo, Gordon leading in their bailiwicks Ranada identified two major blocs where Aquino is leading: the office cluster, which includes branches in the Makati and Ortigas area, and the school cluster which covers major schools and universities in the Katipunan area in Quezon City and the University belt in Manila. In the office cluster, Teodoro and Gordon come in second and third, respectively. In the University Belt area, it’s a close fight between Gordon and Villar for third. Aquino and Teodoro lead by a wide margin in the city of Tarlac, the home province of the Cojuangco clan to which they both belong. Meanwhile, Gordon overtook Aquino by one percent in Olongapo City, where he served as the former mayor and chairman of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. Surprisingly, Villar came in number two overall in his bailiwick of Las Piñas City. He ranks number one only in three branches while Aquino dominated the other five branches in the city. It was also interesting to note that Teodoro leads by a wide margin over Aquino in the Guagua branch in Pampanga, the only branch near Lubao town, President Arroyo’s hometown. The Aquino camp released a press release in March declaring “a big Aquino win" in the promotion. But while Aquino leads by as much as 25,000 votes in the informal survey, Ranada said the declaration was quite premature. “Although it’s a far lead, it’s still not yet over. A lot of things can happen," he said. Ranada admitted that the 7-Elections promotion boosted their sales, but he stressed that the activity was not put up solely for the purpose of gaining profit from the election hype. “A lot of other companies have been trying this out, using the election craze to fuel their sales… but we’d like to highlight that our tally also promotes voter awareness," he said. The promo ends on May 4, six days before election day. Ranada said the Comelec only allowed them to do the promo until that date to make sure it does not interfere with official election activities happening a few days before May 10. With two more weeks to go before the promo ends, first-time voter Mara said she will continue to buy her candidate’s cups, even if she knows it has no bearing whatsoever in the upcoming election’s results. “It’s my first time to vote in May. I believe in [my candidate] and I would like to show my support in any way I can. Buying this drink is the least I can do," she said. - YA/GMANews.TV