One of Canada’s most famous marketing campaigns is going to be fully digitized as Tim Hortons exchanges printed messages under rolled coffee edges to scan a loyalty card or app.
The chain’s annual Spring Prize Contest is now simply Roll Up to Win – rather than Roll Up The Rim To Win – and eliminates the hassle of rolling up a coffee cup rim with your hands or teeth to reveal a message like “Win Donut”.
Customers now scan the Tim Hortons app on their smartphone at the time of purchase to receive a “roll” that could reveal a prize such as “Free Donut” or scan a loyalty card and later register on the competition website to see the roles and awards they deserve.
“This is such an icon,” said Hope Bagozzi, Tim Hortons’ chief marketing officer, in an interview. “While it is changing, we think it will evolve even more and we hope guests will love it in its new iteration.”
Tim Hortons has added new menu items to the campaign. Cold drinks and breakfast rolls can now be awarded prizes in addition to hot drinks.
The usual prize pool of free coffee, donuts, electronics and vehicles has also been expanded to include subscriptions to streaming services and reusable cups – part of the company’s efforts to improve the sustainability of the competition.
Indeed, the new digital competition addresses the criticism of the past that even customers with reusable cups had to use a paper cup to play with.
In the meantime, Tim Hortons has withdrawn the dreaded “Please play again” message. Instead, the company said every role is a winner, including reward points that can be earned and redeemed for almost anything you can buy at the fast food restaurant.
Although the coffee chain said the renamed campaign comes with more opportunities to win and the largest prize pool in its 36-year history, it also believes the changes might take some getting used to for their most ardent fans.
Last year’s campaign started with the start of the pandemic and was quickly digitized to prevent employees from collecting rims that were in people’s mouths.
This served as a transition for customers, Bagozzi said.
“People had to be prepared for the fact that their beloved tabs were gone,” she said.
“It’s kind of a tradition. People are so used to rolling it up with their teeth or had different ways to do it, so last year was an adjustment. “
In fact, the rim-based competition was so popular that it sparked the most Canadian inventions – a coffee breed roller roller called the Rimroller – featured in CBC’s Dragon’s Den.
The interactive element hasn’t completely disappeared, said Bagozzi.
“We designed the actual experience on the app to be fun,” she said. “We made it as visceral as possible to mimic the tab experience. So there will be some kind of sensation and a sound. “
Tim Hortons’ parent company, Restaurant Brands International Inc., said last week a third of adult Canadians are currently using the coffee chain’s loyalty program.
Duncan Fulton, RBI’s chief corporate officer, said the chain’s loyalty program provides the company with a “powerful marketing tool” to better tailor offers to customers.
“It enables us to send more targeted offers to people in the future that are more in line with what they like,” said Bagozzi. “It gives us the knowledge … to make it more relevant to Canadians.”
The competition runs from March 8th to April 4th. At the end, there are two more weeks to accept the prices within the app or website.
READ MORE: Canadians launch a petition urging Tim Hortons to remove freshly cracked eggs from breakfast rolls
READ MORE: To gain market share, Tim Hortons is modernizing the drive-thru and updating the menu items
Brett Bundale, the Canadian press
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