I got the following spammy viral message from a friend today:
Subject: Tim Horton’s… what your coffee buys!
Ron Joyce, Tim’s former partner who bought out Tim’s widow and owns Tim Hortons, owns this 161 foot boat. I am so glad to have helped him out, one donut and a coffee at a time – especially now that almost every reminder of who Tim Horton was is gone and none of the employees have any idea – even traded the proud Maple Leaf blue signs for Liberal red eh. Makes me even prouder to reflect on Tim’s grandson playing in a subsidized house league hockey league while I view this yacht!
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/video2/sailingaway/index.html
As a disclaimer, I have no idea as to whether or not this is actually Ron Joyce’s boat, or if Tim Horton’s grandson is really “playing in a subsidized house league”. Aside from the links now inserted, here was my response to him.
From the tone of the writer I picture a tough line-worker sounding resentful over the success of the chain and 2 thoughts spring to mind:
1. As any Canadian knows, THD – as both a brand and a product – is wildly engrained into our collective psyches, and from a marketing perspective it’s awesome to have a customer like this who obviously feels such a passionate connection to the brand that he seems to be taking personal offence at what he perceives as a financial injustice at the hands of “the evil corporation”.
2. Give me a break! Where does this guy think the profits from his “one coffee and one doughnut at a time” go? The company is not a co-op or credit union, nor does Tim’s widow or family wait for the Brinks truck to roll up (no pun intended!) every month. This is a business plain and simple and Ron Joyce et al. are/were in the game to make money; disagree over the evils of capitalism if you will, but that’s their plan.
If they weren’t making money, there wouldn’t be the same number of stores, and therefore not the same level of entrenchment in our culture and ’round and ’round we go…
What I find more interesting about THD is how the brand has evolved over time and while the original co-founder’s name is on the marquee, there is no more reference to the man anywhere; it’s almost as though “Tim Hortons” has solidified into a proper noun in customers’ minds and there is no connection to the man himself. Truly, who under 40 even knows who Tim Horton was, let alone remembers ever being in an outlet that had his picture hanging on the wall?
So… Harland Sanders is dead but the KFC brand still gets mileage out of his likeness with its cartoon logo. Dave Thomas is dead, and while his personal impact on the Wendy’s brand is obviously gone, you could still argue a tie to it through the use of the cartoon ‘Wendy’ that they’ve always had.
Tim Hortons, on the other hand, was never really about Tim Horton – alive or dead. Yes, at one time each location featured his picture, but little else, save from originally trying to cash in on his popularity in the Golden Horseshoe. (Can you imagine starting a franchise today named for a sports star without memorabilia in each shop, dishes named for them, etc.? Unthinkable!)
I suppose that I could understand someone getting upset if Ron Joyce tried to capitalize on the ‘rugged blue-liner’s image’ after Horton’s death and was now trying to whitewash it, but truly, the operation was always about making money, and if Horton was alive today, I’m sure that he too would be happy to be sitting on his 161′ yacht.
For the fact that Ron Joyce was able to build THD into a 2,700 store chain that has about as much importance to Canadians as both air and water, I give him a Rave!
