Tim Hortons: A case in Brand Reputation Missteps

Sitting down and having a "Timmies" has become a national pastime, like watching a Calgary Flames hockey game on a Saturday night. Tim Hortons has been around for decades in Canada, and over that time the company has built a reputation as a classic Canadian brand. With more than 4000 locations across Canada, it's hard to go very far before seeing the recognizable colour scheme and font with the "Tim Hortons" logo imprinted across coffee cups and boxes of donuts.

Tim Hortons is often seen as the example of Canadiana: cofounded by and named after a hockey player; sponsor of community events using the name of a popular product line, Timbits; inventor of the popular "Roll up the Rim to Win" sales promotion, employer of Canadian NHL star Sidney Crosby as a corporate spokesperson. And, if you ever visit a Tim Hortons location, you will find a cross-section of society and a real meeting place of Canadians from diverse backgrounds.

But this love affair that Canadians have had with Tim Horton has hit the rocks over the last few years. Reason for concern started in 2017 when a ranking of top Canadian coffee had Tim Hortons in fourth place behind McDonald's, Second Cup and Starbucks. In early 2018, Tim Hortons franchises began to cut coffee breaks for its employees, blaming a rise in minimum wage. Politicians got involved in this unpopular and tone-deaf decision. Nathan Cullen, an NDP MP in federal parliament spoke out: "If all the companies that employ the customers of Tim Hortons did the same thing that Tim Hortons is doing, Tim Hortons would probably be out of business [this] seems like a cruel decision, quite vindictive on their part it doesn't seem very wholesome."

Later that year Tim Hortons committed another blunder. In response to public pressure, Tim Hortons announced a new environmentally friendly lid. However, there were many complaints over how spill-prone the new lids were. Social media sites were displaying Tim Hortons customers' unhappiness with the new design. Even though the company had been able to avoid too much bad press over the years, it started to lose its grasp on its reputation as grew, thanks to some serious blunders and missteps.

It was not surprising that Tim Hortons brand was going to take a hit. But no one expected such a steep decline. In the Reputation Institute's yearly ranking of Canada's most reputable brand, Tim Hortons fell from 13th place to 67th. Leger, a Canadian market research firm, conducted a similar survey and reported in 2018 that "Timmies" had fallen from 4th to 50th in brand reputation. It has become clear that this decline in brand is more of a free fall.

As a result, the Tim Hortons presented a $700 million revitalization plan focused on improving the stores, coffee and food, along with a plan to better engage the media as well.

If Tim Horton's was going to adjust the pricing of their drinks to be more comparative with Starbucks, they should:

Question 51 options:

	start bringing in a "secret menu", similar to Starbucks and seen on social media by consumers and influencers
	decrease all prices of their drinks
	decrease only the price of their specialty lattes and iced cappuccinos
	increase the price of their specialty lattes and iced cappuccinos only

Tim Horton's "head of marketing, who is in charge of packaging, has fallen in love with the Boston cream doughnut every day I watch him as he gets his Boston Cream doughnut, takes it out of the bag, looks at the doughnut and looks at the bag and the top of the Boston Cream doughnut is smeared inside the bag."

The is an example of:

Question 52 options:

	cognitive dissonance
	demographic behaviour
	customer satisfaction
	geographic segmentation

Sale promotions like "roll up the rim" allow Tim Horton's to meet what objective:

Question 53 options:

	sell new-to-market products
	incentivizing competitor's customers to come try Tim Horton's
	personal selling
	corporate social responsibility

Tim's environmentally friendly lid mentioned in the case study is an example of which product modification type?

Question 54 options:

	quality
	diversification
	style
	functional