Going digital: Tim Hortons’ ‘Roll up the Rim’ will look a lot different this year

No more fiddling with your thumbs or using your teeth on the rim of a Tim Hortons coffee cup.

Tim Hortons is officially getting rid of printed messages under rolled-up coffee cup rims moving to a scan of your loyalty card or on the Tims app.

To reflect the change, Tim Hortons has changed the name of the annual spring contest to simply “Roll up to Win” – ditching the rim component.

Customers will now scan the Tims app on their phone, which was all tested last year when Tims had to adapt the contest to pandemic restrictions.

It also helps Tims with their push toward reducing waste as their coffee cups were in some cases unused other than for the popular contest.

Tim Hortons has added new menu items to the campaign, with cold beverages and breakfast sandwiches now eligible for prizes in addition to hot drinks.

The contest will run from March 8th to April 4th, with an additional two weeks in the end to accept the prizes within the app or website.

Meanwhile, Tim Hortons has also retired the dreaded “please play again” message. Instead, the company said every roll is a winner, including reward points that can be collected and redeemed for almost anything you can buy at the restaurant.

Still, while the coffee chain said the rebranded campaign comes with more chances to win and the largest prize pool in its 36-year history, it’s also expecting the changes could take some getting used to for its most ardent fans.

Last year’s campaign kicked off just as the COVID-19 pandemic started and was quickly shifted to digital to prevent staff from having to collect rims that had been in people’s mouths.

Chief Marketing Officer Hope Bagozzi said this served as a transition for customers.

“People had to adjust to the fact that their beloved tabs had gone away,” she said.

“it’s sort of a tradition. people are so used to rolling it up with their teeth or had different ways of doing it, so last year was an adjustment.”

The rim-based contest was so popular it sparked the most Canadian invention; a coffee cup rim-rolling device known as the “Rim Roller” featured on CBC’s “Dragon’s Den.”

Tim Hortons’ parent company restaurant brands International Inc. said last week one-third of adult Canadians currently use the coffee chain’s loyalty program.

With files from The Canadian Press