Tim Hortons' newest ad campaign, "built on national pride," launches Friday and if successful, could "inform the coffee chain’s marketing tone going forward," according to Susan Krashinsky of the GLOBE & MAIL. The ad features Penguins C Sidney Crosby, who after "taking the ice for a game, a horde of hockey lovers streams onto the rink to back him up." Compared to the brand's use of Crosby in previous spots, the new commercial has "a more spirited tone." Tim Hortons Senior Dir of Marketing & National Programs Rob Forbes said, "The whole relationship with hockey and how we’ve advertised it is really evolving." JWT Canada, the brand's ad agency, did "an online study of 900 Canadians to measure" how they see themselves. The study found that most Canadians in the study said that they "feel more proud of being Canadian than they did five years ago." Among the top factors that participants cited as contributing to that stronger pride were "winning the gold medal for hockey in the 2010 Olympics," which 65.5% of those surveyed cited, and "success at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics," which came up in 63.5% of responses. JWT Chief Creative & Integration Officer Brent Choi said, "We wanted to tap into this insight to be less quiet in asserting that hockey is something that all Canadians own." The new Tim Hortons spot, which will launch on TV during Saturday's World Junior Hockey Championships semifinal game, "finishes with the line: 'Nothing brings Canadians together like a good ol’ hockey game.'" The ad, which was filmed in September in Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, also "features the famed green men, two rabid ... Canucks fans" (
GLOBE & MAIL, 12/3).
