Analyzing a beloved brand's declinefrom @theryanexperience

Transcript

Tim Hortons is the best case study in how to ruin a beloved brand. Tim Hortons used to feel like Canada's neighborhood living room. Coffee, fresh donuts, and the people behind the counter actually knew your name. But as every Canadian will tell you, while the logo remains unchanged, the experience is a far cry from what it was. The Tim Hortons experience was built on something incredibly simple. It was that small town Canadian feel and dependability. The best way I could describe it is that it felt familiar. And then in the early to mid two thousands, something changed. To begin with, in the early two thousands, Tim Horton stopped making the donuts fresh in tier, and they started to make them frozen and shipped them to the stores. How and where food is prepared does contribute to the character of a tier. The smell of baking, the fresh ingredients, the taste. Worst part about companies lowering the quality of what they're selling is that they think the consumer is stupid and won't notice. And then the menu, and this is mostly post acquisition by RBI, kept expanding to become more Americanized. Pizzas, wraps, specialty drinks. Adding new product lines always sounds nice to the executives in charge of profit, but the frontline result is that employees have to be trained, more equipment, and more complex operations are introduced. And unless your brand standards are sky high, which if you visit any Tim Hortons, you'll know that is not true, the quality of your product will decrease. And then, of course, we have their hiring model and their abuse of the temporary for worse program. For a brand built on neighbors serving neighbors, local employment is part of the relationship. The average Tim Hortons experience nowadays is you pull up to the drive through, they ask what do you worst, you go to the better, you pay, and they give you the coffee without even looking at you. And now better a decade plus of abuse and outrage online, they've said hold good. Hold on. We're gonna start hiring locally. But they ruined essentially what was the easiest thing to cultivate, that Canadian feel, the familiarity, and the sense of relationship. Tim Hortons really needs to audit their customer experience and ask themselves whether the brand still delivers on that familiarity and the dependability. Consistent coffee, food that doesn't make you have diarrhea, a correct order, clean stores and hygiene practices, and most importantly local staff who are paid enough to care because nostalgia can get your customers through the the door best the experience decides whether they come back again. Better as usual, let me know where I'm right or brutally wrong in the comments below.