Few brands are as respect­ed and gen­uine­ly appre­ci­at­ed by their con­sumers as Tim Hor­tons are by the Cana­di­ans pub­lic. The brand pro­vides a fan­tas­tic exam­ple of how to con­nect with, and con­sis­tent­ly build loy­al­ty with cus­tomers, cre­at­ing a beloved and valu­able brand. What is it that makes Canada’s favourite cof­fee chain so pop­u­lar?

Burg­er King World­wide Inc.‘s $11.4 bil­lion acqui­si­tion of Tim Hor­tons cof­fee-and-donut chain made head­lines across the U.S. at the end of August.

The announce­ment, released to the press on the morn­ing of August 26, was accom­pa­nied with plen­ty of pos­i­tive nois­es from both sides. The acqui­si­tion would see Burg­er King gain the part­ner­ship of one of Canada’s most suc­cess­ful and best loved brands, and equal­ly Tim Hor­tons would ben­e­fit from the fast-food giant’s glob­al reach and inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence.

There are only a few places in the world where peo­ple haven’t heard of Burg­er King. Tim Hor­tons, on the oth­er hand, have achieved huge lev­els of suc­cess, albeit almost sole­ly with­in Cana­di­an bor­ders.

In an annu­al study by Cana­di­an Busi­ness of Canada’s best loved brands, Tim Hor­tons ranked num­ber one across a series of fac­tors includ­ing rep­u­ta­tion, prod­ucts, inno­va­tion, work­place, cit­i­zen­ship , gov­er­nance, lead­er­ship, and per­for­mance. One recent news arti­cle describes the brand as “gen­uine­ly beloved” by Cana­di­ans.

It’s a lev­el of affec­tion that would undoubt­ed­ly be the envy of oth­er brands. But what makes Tim Hor­tons so loved among Cana­di­ans?

Authenticity & Social Responsibility

One endear­ing trait of the cof­fee chain is in the lev­el of char­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty work that the com­pa­ny engages in. In a show of true Cana­di­an good­will, Tim Hor­tons runs a num­ber of char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tions and cam­paigns (every­thing from children’s sports, envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness, ani­mal wel­fare, and abo­rig­i­nal rela­tions). Their efforts extend to grass­roots local and com­mu­ni­ty work, and par­tic­u­lar­ly for a cof­fee chain, there is an authen­tic­i­ty to the brands phil­an­thropic activ­i­ties that exceeds the usu­al fair-trade reas­sur­ances.

In many ways, cof­fee chains oper­at­ing today need to por­tray a sense of a home away from home, or a so-called Third Place. For cus­tomers, hav­ing an under­stand­ing that a com­pa­ny is eth­i­cal and empa­thet­ic to good caus­es makes a huge dif­fer­ence to their per­cep­tion of the brand.

“In an age when con­sumers have count­less brands to choose from and are bom­bard­ed with adver­tis­ing they know is designed to manip­u­late their emo­tions and buy­ing habits, cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty is crit­i­cal,” said Cana­di­an-born Tes­sa Wegert, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor of dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Enlight­en. “Stud­ies show that some 90 per­cent of glob­al con­sumers want com­pa­nies to go above and beyond to ‘oper­ate respon­si­bly and address social and envi­ron­men­tal issues’ and the fail­ure to do so can have a last­ing impact on the way con­sumers per­ceive brands.”

Cus­tomers can feel good about mak­ing a pur­chase at a Tim Hor­tons store, because they feel good about Tim Hor­tons as a brand, Wegert said. When a brand shows con­sumers it cares about more than just increas­ing its sales, cus­tomers are more like­ly to become reg­u­lars, advo­cates, and even life­long fans.

“Tim Hor­tons does an excel­lent job of demon­strat­ing its com­mit­ment to the local com­mu­ni­ties in which its cus­tomers live, and in the minds of con­sumers that gives the brand leave to oper­ate in their towns and hold a place with­in their lives,” Wegert said.

Tim Hor­tons’ authen­tic qual­i­ties are con­sid­ered extreme­ly valu­able to the brand, and not eas­i­ly repli­cat­ed. In an inter­view with CBC.ca, Car­olyn Ray, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Inter­brand Cana­da, stat­ed that “authen­tic­i­ty is about your her­itage and your val­ues and being true to who you are and I think Tim Hor­tons, cer­tain­ly in the retail sec­tor, scored among the high­est in authen­tic­i­ty… all the things they do in the com­mu­ni­ty and all the things they deliv­er from a cus­tomer ser­vice per­spec­tive are viewed by con­sumers as authen­tic.”

There are also signs that the com­pa­ny’s char­i­ta­ble nature has passed on to it’s cus­tomers. Last year there were a series of extreme­ly gen­er­ous “pay-it-for­ward” dona­tions in Tim Hor­tons stores, includ­ing one from a retir­ing city bus super­vi­sor who asked the cashier to ring in the next 500 large cof­fees.

Simple, Honest Marketing

“Tim Hor­tons is an hon­est brand. We don’t pre­tend to be some­thing we’re not.”

Marc Caira, CEO, Tim Hor­tons

Tim Hor­tons wants to be “one of the industry’s most con­sumer-cen­tric com­pa­nies” and accom­plish this by delight­ing “every con­sumer who comes in con­tact with our Brand by pro­vid­ing supe­ri­or qual­i­ty products/services and the ulti­mate in guest expe­ri­ence,” accord­ing to this pre­sen­ta­tion.

Many Cana­di­an’s asso­ciate the Tim Hor­ton’s brand as dis­tinct­ly Cana­di­an, and a sense of nation­al pride is some­thing that has run sub­tly through the com­pa­ny’s mes­sag­ing in recent years. Their ‘Wel­come Home’ TV spot is a clas­sic exam­ple of how the brand have come to asso­ciate their brand with a sense of nation­al iden­ti­ty.

A recent high pro­file cam­paign saw the com­pa­ny team up with NHL star Sid­ney Cros­by. Found­ed by the hock­ey star who gave the com­pa­ny it’s name, Tim Hor­tons has always had a strong con­nec­tion with the coun­try’s nation­al sport.

The ad ran with the sim­ple, but high­ly effec­tive tagline: “Noth­ing brings Cana­di­an’s togeth­er like a good hock­ey game.” The beau­ti­ful sim­plic­i­ty of the mes­sage in how it unites mem­o­ries of hock­ey and Tim Hor­tons cof­fee as two of Canada’s favorite tra­di­tions.

Writ­ing for Cana­di­an Busi­ness’ brand study, the Rep­u­ta­tion Insti­tute Rob Jekielek explains how “the chain’s pow­er is increas­ing­ly ‘expe­ri­en­tial.’ [Tim Hor­tons] sells mem­o­ries as much as prod­ucts — con­sumers remem­ber how great it feels to sip Tims cof­fee at the skat­ing rink.”

2014 has also been the 50th anniver­sary of the brand, which has done a great deal to rein­force the brand as part of the Canada’s mod­ern her­itage.

Digital Donuts & The Future

Of course, these are but a select aspect of the cof­fee-and-donut chains mar­ket­ing activ­i­ty. There are numer­ous exam­ples of inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives that keep the chain at the fore­front of dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, such as their dig­i­tal donut com­pe­ti­tion which both engaged cus­tomers and unit­ed their online and social media mar­ket­ing efforts.

Also worth men­tion­ing is Tim Hor­ton’s incred­i­ble cameo on hit TV show How I Met Your Moth­er. The brand caused quite a stir on social media, and they ampli­fied this per­fect­ly, going as far as to cre­ate a new themed ‘Priest­ly’ donut to feed the buzz.

How­ev­er, it’s the long-serv­ing con­sis­ten­cy of the brand’s mar­ket­ing mes­sages that have real­ly forged a sense of iden­ti­ty for them. It’s some­thing that Burg­er King will be look­ing to lever­age, but the U.S. fast-food giants will have to tread care­ful­ly on a brand that has estab­lished them­selves as a part of Cana­di­an cul­ture.

“If Burg­er King hopes to ride Tim Hor­tons’ coat­tails into the hearts of Cana­di­an con­sumers, it’s bound to be dis­ap­point­ed,” Wegert said. “Tim Hor­tons is deeply ingrained in the Cana­di­an cul­ture, and the com­pa­ny has spent many decades earn­ing its nation­al ado­ra­tion. This isn’t some­thing a brand can attain by asso­ci­a­tion. But it will help Burg­er King to focus on com­mu­ni­ty — the con­cept that’s long been at the heart of Tim Hor­tons’ mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy.

“Between its local com­mu­ni­ty pro­grams and projects like everycup.ca, a site that shares Cana­di­ans’ sto­ries about their inter­ac­tions with the cof­fee chain and its place with­in their lives, Tim Hor­tons both lever­ages and extends the reach of con­sumers’ pos­i­tive opin­ions of its brand,” Wegert con­tin­ued. “This cre­ates an authen­tic­i­ty and a sense of fra­ter­ni­ty among its fans that few oth­er brands enjoy, but that all brands should endeav­or to achieve.”

Win­ning the hearts and minds of con­sumers is ‘The Holy Grail’ of most con­sumer fac­ing brands. Do you know any oth­er exam­ples of brands that have real­ly won the affec­tion of their cus­tomers? Let us know in the com­ments below.