It is one of the most enduring and widely recognized–or should that be endurrring and widely rrrecognized?–promotions in Canadian marketing history.
It has spawned a copycat promotion from Country Style Donuts called “Turn up a Winner” and a legal dispute in Quebec over a winning cup recovered from a public school garbage can. Its yearly arrival produces a raft of media coverage and is viewed in some corners as the unofficial start of spring.
Tim Hortons “Roll up the Rim” promotion is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and if recent social media activity is any indication, Canadian consumers are excited. “Roll up the Rim is back!” stated a recent post on Twitter. “My favourite Canadian holiday.”
The annual promotion has become so popular that Tim’s extended it to include its store at the Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan in 2006. The prizing is different, and camouflage-coloured cups replace the distinctive yellow and red ones used in Canada, but Canadian troops stationed in Kandahar have the same opportunity to win an apple fritter as their countrymen in Kamloops.
Andrea Hughes, brand manager for Tim Hortons in Oakville, Ont., and a lead on Roll up the Rim, said the program’s simplicity is a key factor in both its popularity and longevity. “It gives you a chance to win tens of millions of other prizes just by buying your morning coffee,” she said.
But while Roll up the Rim has become one of the biggest marketing initiatives of the year for Tim’s, the company is tight lipped about its impact on sales of double doubles or Boston cream donuts.
“We don’t really measure the contest in terms of sales, because the primary focus is rewarding guests for their loyalty,” said Hughes. “We’re fortunate that our guests have embraced the contest and continue to embrace it every year. It continues to be relevant to them, which is the most important measure to us.”
Hughes said that redemption rates for Roll up the Rim typically range from 85%–100% depending on the prize. Not surprisingly, each of the 40 vehicle prizes offered in 2010 were claimed.
Roll up the Rim debuted in 1986, when Tim’s–which had less than 300 outlets at the time–set out to develop a program that would reward its loyal customers and possibly attract new ones.
The company knew that it wanted to go the on-pack prizing route, and it was while brainstorming ideas with one of its cup suppliers, Lily Cup (now Solo Cup Canada), that the white space under the cup’s rim was deemed a suitable location for posting contest messages. A marketing phenomenon was born.
The grand prize that first year was a Tim Bits Snack Pack. Vehicle prizes were awarded for the first time in 1988, and Tim’s has partnered with several automakers since then, including GM, Ford and Toyota.
This year’s iteration of Roll up the Rim features more than 47 million prizes, including 40 Toyota Matrix cars, 100 Panasonic 3D TVs, 1,000 barbeques courtesy of Napoleon Gourmet Grills–with the 25th anniversary Roll up the Rim logo emblazoned on their lids–5,000 Raleigh mountain bikes and 25,000 $100 Tim Hortons gift cards.
“We’ve grown a lot over the last 25 years,” said Hughes, and Tim’s keeps a close eye on consumer trends to ensure it is offering sought-after prizes. This year’s contest features 16 million more prizes than last year, boosting the odds of winning to 1 in 6 from 1 in 9 last year.
Barrie, Ont.–based Napoleon, the barbeque prize donor, is a first-time partner on Roll up the Rim this year. National advertising manager Dave Coulson said the company has been trying get involved with Tim’s for several years.
Coulson said that having the Napoleon name and logo in 3,500 Tim’s stores throughout Canada and the Northeastern U.S, as well as on literally millions of cups, creates huge brand recognition for the company. The timing of Roll up the Rim, just as winter-weary consumers are starting to think about barbeque season, is also beneficial he said.
“Any of the lineups that I usually see when I’m driving by Tim’s are double the size,” said Coulson. “People get psyched about it and pumped about it, and the exposure is great.”
Toyota vehicles have constituted the grand prize in Roll up the Win for the past six years. Beyond the obvious brand exposure, Sandy Di Felice, director of external affairs for Toyota Canada in Toronto, said the partnership also enables the automaker to align itself with a brand that is part of the Canadian fabric.
“It’s really not just a matter of whether our product appears on the cups–though we value that–but it’s about long-term shared values, shared brand pride,” she said. “We like to say that in building our value proposition with Canadians, Toyota’s as much a part of Canadian road trips as Tim Hortons is.”
