Andrew Li's Blog

There’s nothing like a warm cup o’ joe to wake you up every morning, especially during the Canadian winter months, which seem to last forever.  Among the many individual coffee shops, and Blenz and Starbucks franchises, is an iconic Canadian force in the coffee market, Tim Hortons. For a 25^th straight year, Tim Horton’s annual “roll up the rim to win” contest returned this week with millions of prizes and greater odds to win (1 in 6 up from 1 in 9 last year).

Effective branding has made Tim Hortons into a symbol of national identity.  The “roll up the rim to win” marketing campaign reinforces this identity into Canadian Culture every year in March by generating awareness of the product with the familiar rolling r slogan, and rewarding customers with over 47 million possible prizes. In what seems great trade-off, sponsors donate prizes in exchange for being part of the marketing campaign, resulting with a large increase in coffee sales for Tim Hortons. Although it already dominates over 60% of the Canadian coffee market, March should see a heavy influx of the recognizable of red coffee cups with the giant upwards pointing arrow.

I too, have found myself become a regular customer at Tim Hortons every March giddy with excitement as I roll up the rim perhaps hoping to see that I’ve won a car or even a donut. Last year was resulted in a single donut from about 15 cups of coffee, and 0 for 2 so far this year.  Here’s hoping I’m one of the lucky 40 people who’ll win a new Toyota Matrix while not burning a hole in my pocket due to coffee expenditures.