RRRoll up the rim to lose

Win? I don't think so Tims

If you recall, I wrote an article about Tim Hortons in the January 23 issue of the Interrobang. I thought I’d take it one step further this week by writing about Tim Hortons’ annual Roll Up The Rim contest.

This year the contest began on February 20, so we’re a month into long lines of people buying coffee, drinking it down and then frantically rolling up the rim of the cup in the hopes of winning something.

I’ve tried my luck at this marketing campaign, and I haven’t been successful. One donut in five attempts is hardly a lucky streak. But what is it with this promotion that draws people towards it like magnets? I should add that I too joined this bandwagon, for I wouldn’t drink much coffee over the fall and winter because I just didn’t see myself queuing up for 20 minutes to buy coffee. I still don’t – the only time I really get coffee is when there is no line in front of the any of the Fanshawe outlets of Tim Hortons, which, as most of you know, is rare.

Nevertheless, I’ve seen people queue for what seems to be ages in front of the campus outlets in the hopes of buying a coffee and a donut to munch in class or while on break. This year, Tim Hortons offers prizes such as 40 Toyota Camry hybrid vehicles, 100 Panasonic 3D TV sets, 1,000 Coleman camping packages, 500 Panasonic digital cameras, 25,000 Tim Cards and 47 million food prizes. The prizes look good, and personally I’d love to win the car, but that’s where I realize there are several thousands more who want to do exactly the same.

While doing my research on this contest (since it’s all new to me,) I came across YouTube videos with people providing tutorials on how to roll up the rim. I thought, “Surely rolling up the rim of a coffee cup isn’t as hard as people make it out to be.” When I tried my hand at it myself, I failed miserably. Perhaps knowing how to roll up a rim is a big thing after all. In fact, there was an article in the Winnipeg Free Press dated March 11, 2007, about a man named Paul Kind. This then-62 year old did something that will leave Tim Hortons fans forever indebted: he invented the Rim Roller. For many people, the Rim Roller is a device that stands right up there with the greatest Canadian inventions of all time: insulin, the telephone, the lightbulb, the Canadarm, basketball, the dental mirror and more. For others, like Bonnie Mayer, who was featured in the Winnipeg Free Press article, the invention wasn’t required. “It’s amazing to me that someone would invent this ... someone has w-a-a-a-a-y too much time on their hands,” she said. I guess it was kind of expected that this idea, like many other ideas, would face its own criticism, but there’s no taking away anything from the potential such an invention has in today’s world.

Whatever the result of this contest, this marketing campaign that Tim Hortons puts out each spring is always going to be an exciting time for coffee drinkers. It’s quite a strange addiction (if that’s the right way to put it), but from what I understand, during this month of RRRoll Up The Rim, it’s always going to be a craze and it’s always going to be Canadian. 

Originally Written for the Interrobang:http://www.fsu.ca/interrobang_article.asp?storyID=8276&sectionID=2&issueID=200
Image Credit: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/186/419710136_93800e28bb.jpg
Video Credit:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56wWFUyL-IA