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Tim Hortons’ marketing strategy is built to win in two places at once: the national imagination and the local routine. The brand leans on everyday Canadian identity, repeats a small number of recognizable tentpoles, and uses loyalty + payments to turn “sometimes” guests into weekly (or daily) regulars. In 2026, the playbook still holds because it’s designed around habit, not hype.
Results. RBI reports steady comps at Tim Hortons Canada (e.g., +3.6% in Q2-2025) and category shifts like warm-winter cold-drink gains (Restaurant Brands). The bigger story is resilience: the brand is engineered to keep visits coming even as dayparts and drink mix shift.
Tim Hortons target market is for people with Canadian pride, so familiarity and community first; coffee, breakfast and hockey are the cultural triangle. The brand doesn’t need to reintroduce itself—its job is to stay emotionally “close” through repetition, local presence, and a tone that feels like home.
That positioning is reinforced through decades of youth sports and community presence: it puts the logo where families actually spend time, not just where they scroll. Even when the brand paused men’s programming during Hockey Canada’s 2022 crisis, it maintained women’s, para and youth support—signaling brand safety while protecting grassroots credibility.
Why it works:
Tim Hortons’ marketing strategy relies on a few “big moments” that come back every year and feel bigger than a promotion. They’re structured to do three jobs at once: drive traffic, earn attention, and reinforce community identity.
Roll Up To Win: Long-running, gamified promotion that now blends the app with physical cups (cups returned in 2025), keeping ritual and digital data together. A successful Roll Up execution is operational, not just creative: the store experience needs to be fast, prizes and redemption need to feel real, and the “roll” mechanic needs to be easy enough for casual guests.
Smile Cookie: A spring charity drive that has become a media event; $22.6M raised in 2025 for 600+ local charities across Canada and the US. The product is simple; the story is local. That combination turns a $2-ish item into something people share and buy repeatedly.
Camp Day: One of the country’s largest single-day fundraisers; $13M raised in 2025 and over $262M all-time to send underserved youth to Tims Camps. The campaign works because it gives franchisees, staff, and guests a shared purpose that’s easy to understand and easy to participate in.
Why it works:
Tim Hortons’ menu strategy is built around a stable core and an experimental edge. The core keeps trust. The edge keeps attention—especially in beverages, where customization and seasonal variety drive repeat visits.
The “back to basics” push improved fundamentals; freshly cracked eggs, new dark roast, and Craveables—paired with national sampling for Tims Rewards members. That quality reset matters because breakfast is the highest-frequency daypart; small improvements compound fast at national scale (Restaurant Brands International).
On the growth side, the beverage platform keeps expanding. Cold Brew launched nationally in 2021, and iced share climbed to ~40% of beverages by 2023. In 2026, functional beverages are still a lever: Protein Lattes (hot and iced; up to 20g protein per medium) let Tim Hortons compete for “coffee + nutrition” occasions, not just caffeine.
Why it works:
Tim Hortons’ marketing strategy isn’t only about messaging—it’s about mechanics. Loyalty and payments make the brand easier to choose, easier to repeat, and easier to personalize.
Tims Rewards shifted from “per-visit” to spend-based earning (10 pts per dollar), which helps customers understand value without doing math at the counter. With 5M+ monthly active users in Canada, the app becomes a direct channel for targeted offers, order ahead, delivery, and daypart-specific prompts.
In 2023, Tims launched the Tims Mastercard (no annual fee), embedded in-app, a key part of Tim Hortons’ marketing strategy. Cardholders earn up to 15 pts/$1 at Tims and 5 pts/$1 on everyday categories like groceries, gas, transit—tightening the loop between everyday spend and coffee rituals (Tims Mastercard). When earning is faster, redemption is faster, and that accelerates frequency.
Why it works:
Tims invested heavily in digital ordering, loyalty, and media (announced C$80M in 2021 to support its “Back to Basics” plan). Today, flagship promos (Roll Up), targeted offers, and local cause campaigns run through the app, while drive-thru, delivery and curbside extend convenience (Restaurant Brands International).
The key shift is behavioral: digital becomes muscle memory when it removes friction. When ordering is faster, pickup is clear, and rewards are immediate, customers don’t need a reason to use the app—they just do.
In the US, the Tim Hortons’ marketing strategy frames itself as a national beverage company leading with cold espresso, Cold Brew, and seasonal flavors—while leveraging national tentpoles like Roll Up. The strategy rides broader QSR trends (iced growth, flavored cold coffee) and keeps food simple (QSR Magazine).
What is Roll Up To Win today?
A hybrid activation: earn digital “rolls” in the app with cups back in market for the tactile ritual. Prizes span food, gift cards and big-ticket items.
How big is Tims’ loyalty footprint?
The app sees 5M+ monthly active users in Canada; Tims Rewards earns 10 points per dollar with menu-based redemptions.
What community programs define the brand?
Timbits Minor Sports, Smile Cookie ($22.6M raised in 2025), and Camp Day ($13M raised in 2025; $262M+ all-time) keep the brand present in local life.
What’s new on the Tim Hortons menu?
Functional beverages like Protein Lattes (up to 20g protein), seasonal Cold Brew flavors, and occasion-driven promos.
To apply the Tim Hortons playbook in 2026, business owners must focus on the perspective that the strongest brands build one clear habit loop reinforced through product, community, and digital convenience. This begins by transforming your product into a repeatable ritual, establishing a "default" occasion with consistent quality and a streamlined ordering process, while creating scheduled "tentpole" events that reduce the cost of reintroducing your brand. Beyond the digital scroll, businesses should make community presence operational through sustained local partnerships and use loyalty programs to shape behavior using first-party data. By tightening your brand system to ensure every channel remains consistent, you can move from persuading to converting; if you need to build these fundamentals, you can clarify your positioning with a branding agency, establish conversion-first foundations with a web design agency, or reduce friction through a UI/UX design agency. For full strategy execution, business owners can partner with a Toronto marketing agency or explore deeper growth frameworks through Brand Vision and the latest coverage on Brand Vision Insights.
Dana Nemirovsky is a senior copywriter and digital media analyst who uncovers how marketing, digital content, technology, and cultural trends shape the way we live and consume. At Brand Vision Insights, Dana has authored in-depth features on major brand players, while also covering global economics, lifestyle trends, and digital culture. With a bachelor’s degree in Design and prior experience writing for a fashion magazine, Dana explores how media shapes consumer behaviour, highlighting shifts in marketing strategies and societal trends. Through her copywriting position, she utilizes her knowledge of how audiences engage with language to uncover patterns that inform broader marketing and cultural trends.
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