Business Tim Hortons, the Brazilian coffee chain that wants to be Canadian again Jason Kirby: Tim Hortons has lost its grip on Canadian coffee drinkers and it's not clear its back-to-basics turnaround plan will win them back. Step one: More maple leaves!
Joseph Communications uses cookies for personalization, to customize its online advertisements, and for other purposes. Learn more or change your cookie preferences. By continuing to use our service, you agree to our use of cookies. We use cookies why? You can change cookie preferences. Canadians, it seemed, wanted coffee and donuts, and had few places to get them. So they refined their premise, bought a disused gas station on Ottawa Street North in Hamilton, and after renovating the building, opened the inaugural Tim Horton Donut Shop in It was, at last, a hit.
Ron Joyce was a police officer in Hamilton with aspirations for a fortune as a businessman. Not long before these events he had invested his savings in a Dairy Queen franchise — one so hugely lucrative he wanted at once to expand. Dairy Queen rejected his application to open another franchise, claiming he lacked the requisite financial backing. He sensed an opportunity for expansion. Moreover, he sensed the current owners were weak: the unsuccessful Tim Hortons Restaurants were eating resources, driving the company further into debt, while the breadth of their domain obliged the owners to commute back and forth between Hamilton and Toronto to the point of exhaustion.
They spread to the west coast, and then to the east. Moncton, New Brunswick remains the city with the highest concentration of Tim Hortons in the country, with about one store for every two thousand residents. What was the point?
Tim Hortons, though it seems self-explanatory now, is a somewhat eccentric idea for a chain. The reputation they developed as the quintessential Canadian hangout was a case of mere necessity. What it had was a likeable, inexpensive product and a domestic origin story.
So it did all it could to promote that. Joyce had the idea for a plastic coffee mug bearing the Tim Hortons name that would be effectively free with the purchase of any coffee: the mug had a base that fixed it to the dashboard of a car, which meant every customer on the road could be a driving billboard for their brand. In fact, Joyce believed the coffee cup was the best form of advertising available. That was why, in , he and Ron Buist devised a way to incentivize customers to switch from medium coffees to large, to double the advertising real estate.
It was a contest to win free donuts whose participating cups were only available in the largest sizes. It did exactly what it was designed to. It sometimes seems the only thing Canadians love more than drinking Tim Hortons coffee is reading about what it means. All through the s, Tim Hortons commercials emphasized the affection its customers had for the brand, playing up our universal loyalty and all but declaring that patronizing their stores was an act of actual patriotism.
The efficacy of this campaigning can be measured not only by the commercial success of Tim Hortons Inc. This month, the company has come under fire for the response of some franchisees to the mandatory minimum wage increase in Ontario, which included stripping benefits, banning tips and removing paid breaks.
The silhouette of a customer drinking a cup of coffee is seen at a Tim Hortons Inc. The proposed merger of Tim Hortons with American fast food giant Burger King is not just another business deal, because Tim Hortons is not just another business. It has insinuated itself into the Canadian identity with such remarkable success that for some it has become enmeshed in the very idea of Canadianness.
How did this relationship between brand and nation become so intertwined? It reminds him of going for a hot chocolate and a jam-filled donut with his mum and dad after a hockey game when he was growing up in Ontario in the s and s. It's distinctly Canadian," Mr. Connell said. It's somewhere everybody goes. Tim Horton himself, the former Toronto Maple Leaf defenceman killed in a car crash in , was in many ways an ideal personification of the brand.
He wasn't a flashy player, but he was strong and reliable, traits in keeping with Canadian narratives of solidity and self-effacement. The years and the player's fame allowed the business to grow and consolidate. They later opened franchises now owned by 1, Canadians , increased the range of food and coffee varieties, until foreign multinational firms acquired the company, which went on to open locations in the UK, Spain, Mexico, Afghanistan and more. The company is currently involved in projects in Brazil, Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala, where it develops agricultural programmes with some 4, coffee farmers in those countries.
It also sponsors children's sports leagues and organises camps through the foundation it maintains throughout the country for around 60 million per year. Over the years, the Canadian-based chain has updated and added a new menu.
It has changed in many ways, but one thing has remained the same since its community spirit. It brings together families, teenagers, students, friends and workers. Even scholars recognise this particularity of the chain. Patricia Cormack of St.
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