Grand Manan — After a Grand Manan fisherman found a Pepsi logo imprinted on a lobster’s claw, a news story covering the incident was shared thousands of times. This got Tim Hortons to thinking: what if they were to advertise their products on marine life all through the Maritimes?
“There was that Pepsi-logo lobster, that bright blue lobster, and of course Lucky the Translucent Lobster — it seems folks just can’t get enough of lobster news,” said Tim Hortons Canada representative Shelly Olsen. “So we’re going to advertise to Maritimers where the most of them are looking: on lobsters. It just makes good business sense.”
The ubiquitous coffee chain has hired fishermen to bring in thousands of lobsters, whose claws the company will have imprinted with Tim Hortons logos, upcoming soup-and-sandwich deals, and dates for Roll Up the Rim. The fishermen will then deposit the creatures back into the ocean, and later “happen upon” them and alert the local news.
“Even if we can just stage a good photo of a lobster with a double-double in one claw and a honey cruller in the other, I think people would go apeshit for that,” said Olsen. “We may even introduce a new lobster-flavoured donut to sell the whole idea further.”
Reporters from CBC New Brunswick said that it’s probably overkill for Tims to advertise at all, since at least 20 per cent of the agency’s stories already promote Tim Hortons.
“Every other day we write up a story about an animal going through the Tims drive-thru, or a couple getting married in their local Tim Hortons — whatever — and people share the hell out of it,” one local journalist told us, squinting and clearing his throat before taking a sip of coffee.
“But hey, if Tims wants to slap their logo all over every living thing in the sea, we’ll be there to cover it. Lobsters and Tim Hortons together?? Paydirt, baby. Paydirt.”