Sheridan College students are lining up to try their luck at Tim Horton’s annual Roll Up The Rim event, but some feel it’s a marketing gimmick that lures them to spend more, with little chance of winning.
One student complained she spends up to $10 a day and rarely wins.
Despite the promise of millions of prizes, a glowing yellow ‘Please Play Again’ is the more familiar result.
This year, the contest claims it has “more prizes than Canadians”, including the grand prize: a 2015 Toyota Camry. Other prizes include prepaid credit cards, a flat-screen TV, iPads, and thousands of $100 Tim’s cards.
It’s a clever marketing scheme. Customers are far more likely to win a free coffee or donut, or nothing.
Fast Facts
- the first Roll Up The Rim contest was held in 1986. The biggest prize was a snackbox of Timbits
- in places like Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan, a customer’s chance of winning is much higher than in Calgary or Toronto.
- Tim’s distributes the prizes evenly according to geographic area, not population density.
- this year, Tim Hortons began offering an online way to play Roll Up The Rim, called ‘Roll Replay’. This contest offers customers the chance to go online and virtually re-roll their losing medium and large cups.
Some Canadians view Roll Up The Rim as something of a national holiday. It has become one of the most popular and most-watched marketing campaigns in Canadian business, and many lovers (and haters) of the strategy take to social media to announce their results.
