Halifax — Due to the overwhelming popularity of the recent Tim Hortons ads showing a drive-thru in an aisle of a supermarket, the fast food chain plans to turn this fiction into a reality.
The quick-coffee franchise is known for taking the mundane, everyday task of lining up to get things and making it an acceptable activity, no matter the length of time.
Tim Hortons president Elias Diaz Sese said he was gobsmacked by the popularity of the advertisement, but he’d be lying if he claimed it was not part of the company’s larger growth strategy.
“In general, people hate lining up in public to do things,” said Diaz Sese. “That is why online shopping is so appealing, and continues to be a growth area. Our main focus is to provide a quality product worth making a trip outside the home to line up for.”
Sese sees grocery shopping as an aspect of daily drudgery that Tim Hortons could help improve.
“It fits in with our overall strategy of being present at all of life’s lineups: making the undesirable desirable,” said Diaz Sese. “Convincing folks that they want the carrot, then organizing them in a single-file fashion to wait for the carrot, and purchase the carrot — that is the key to our success.”
Taking his carrot metaphor to the limit, Diaz Sese said Tim Hortons sees no juicier carrot than supermarket lines.
“Supermarkets have the perfect model for lineups,” he explained. “People are completely willingly herded like cattle in an orderly fashion to consume.”
Currently, Tim Hortons has an agreement with the Canadian supermarket giant Loblaws to open 3 “cart-thrus” as a pilot project with Atlantic Superstores in Halifax, Dartmouth and Moncton.