Eat & Drink
Roll Up the Rim to Lose but Win Elsewhere?
It's that time of year again. Look up, look down, look all around and you'll be sure to find more discarded coffee cups than usual strewn upon our streets. I've had my gripes about the annual Tim Horton's "Roll Up the Rim to Win" contesting in the past, and every year I feel compelled to write about it for some reason or another. So here we are again.
While I did find the special camouflaged contest cups being sent to Afghanistan "in support of the troops" noteworthy (i.e. kind of ridiculous and embarrassing), it's actually a promotion that's being run concurrently by a competing coffee shop chain that takes the (coffee) cake this year.
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Toronto-based marketing agency Rennick Marketing Solutions, working with Country Style, has come up with a sly promotion in response to the annual Tim Horton's contest. In addition to running their own similar "Turn Up a Winner" contest, from March 3rd to 9th, Country Style will be redeeming *losing* Tim Horton's cup rims for free coffee.
Some might call it piggybacking or sniping, and most people will simply see it as a battle of the crappy coffee chains (queue the "who cares, it's crappy coffee" comments), but if it has any effect on the amount of litter on our city streets then I might have to call it a good idea.


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I know it's wrong and that it causes a lot more waste as people upsize and buy more coffee just for the chance of winning, but my parents have an awfully spiffy Tim Hortons bbq that weakens my resolve to be good ever so slightly.
People really should bring their own thermal cups to all coffee shops...but then, you couldn't "roll up the rim".
No, it sucks because it tastes like watered-down poo. It being cheap seems to be the main reason that people drink it.
Also, why don't they sell better and higher-end travel mugs? Instead of those cheap brown/black plastic ones, go with those steel ones.
And they should start using those sleeves... rather than double-cupping.
I don't think either are necessary, actually.
The sleeves actually cost more than a cup! Tim's is being economical [not eco-friendly] in double cupping. The second cup is usually not a contest type. Some locations in the Toronto area are not doubling their cups, whereas I always find non-Toronto locations supply napkins and double-cup. Note that some of the hot cup sleeves are plastic foam which would be worse than having a box-board cup. It is always better to have your own to be refilled.
It is more irksome that the cost of the tea was raised so much when the steeped tea was introduced in the Toronto area market. [Last year in Montreal they had no clue about a steeped tea - not on the menu.]
I don't care who buys coffee from where, but sometimes it just seems like a pretentious pissing contest when discussing coffee.
The last time I checked, the high end coffee houses use paper cups as well.
The fact that they give you a chance to win is a reward for being a loyal customer, the fact that you throw them away instead of in a bin is just plain ignorance.
Don't blame the faceless machine just because its easy, the blame lies solely with the lazy customer :-(
That'll teach 'em!
Someone once went nearly 40 cups without a win, at which point the conspiracy theories about large having better chances then mediums come 'rolling' out (ha).
Point being, we throw out all our cups like at least any half-intelligent person would, despite the frustration that comes when you turn up that 25th straight losing cup. I agree with Ross, it's entirely the littering customers to blame. Even if Tim's provides the situation, if grown adults can't handle not littering, then to blame Tim's is just avoiding the real problem of stupidity.
Has ANYONE heard of personal responsibility?
WTF!!!!
LONG LIVE COFFEE TIME
http://frugalcanadianliving.blogspot.com/2008/01/provincial-sales-tax-in-ontario.html
are you crazy...I pity your implication that because tim hortons didnt want to put up with your bs complaint by admitting any affiliation with your little "hair-in-a cup" situation that they are bad guys...though i do agree coffee time is the same crap, different brand...you mhy friend, will always be a victim...
williamfigures
you suck.
Happy rolling!