Marketing Competitive Analysis

1. TIM HORTONS
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Keshav Arora
MARCH 15, 2020

2. The Building of a
Canadian Icon
At its core Tim Hortons has been one thing above all else,
authentically Canadian. Affectionately referred to as
Timmies, it is “Canada’s largest restaurant chain” and
boasts that “80% of Canadians [will visit] a Tims in Canada at
least once a month”. But being Canadian also lies at the
heart of Tim Horton’s recent struggles to renew its identity.
Tim Hortons’ primary target consumers are “socially
connected” Canadian adults between the ages of 18-50.
These are individuals who are educated, full or part-time
workers, students, and homemakers. They value
convenience as they are time-pressed balancing a daily
routine between home, school/career, and leisure time.
They use a use a variety of social media platforms to stay
connected with family, friends, and their favourite brands.

3. The Competition
Social Media Platforms
Tim Hortons has a total audience of 4.31M+ across 4 social channels.
The channel with the greatest growth in audience was Instagram.

4. Website
Site overall is easy to navigate and
clearly laid out for optimal consumer
experience. The home page features
the rewards program and the site is
available in both English and French.
The menu focuses on core offerings
but it is clinical in appearance –
featuring the food in a sterile
environment lacking any appetite
appeal. All of their traffic is driven
through organic search, mainly
coming out of Canada.
Easy to navigate website, laid out for
optimal consumer experience.
Customised for regional appeal with
utilization of cookies. Highlights
current promotions clearly on the
first page. Clean, uncluttered
appearance. 58.05% of traffic is
direct.
Minimalistic and easy to navigate the
website, built with keeping mobile
interface optimization in mind.
Focuses on upcoming products,
reward program and social activities
of Starbucks.
Site is overall easy to navigate and
user-friendly. The home page
features current promotions.
The food is appetizing and colourful.
The website is designed with content
specific to the region, featuring
different information, promotions,
hours of operation, and other
relevant information. Most traffic is
driven through organic search.

5. Tim Hortons Facebook Page acts as
a forum to criticize the service and
products. The brand must be more
consistent in its engagement and
respond to more than the first
comment. The level of engagement
and content should be consistent
with the brand’s values.
Facebook Experience
McDonald’s frequently engages with
comments and has almost 80 million
followers. Friendly and positive tone.
Generates approx. 2k likes per post.
Frequency of posts is low.
With more than 35,00,000 followers,
Starbucks shines on Facebook. The
follower volume is due to the brand’s
conversational tone.
Burger King’s Facebook page is filled
with lots of customer complaints.
They are seen attempting to interact
with the consumers but only some
comments get an actual response.
Burger King is not consistent with on-
going communication. The brand
needs to improve on responding
back to the consumers as well as
attempting to find a resolutions to
complaints.

6. Twitter Experience
On Twitter, Tim Hortons engages
with its audience to introduce new
products, promotions, charities, and
other subtle timely conversations
with its audience. However, Tim
Hortons is inconsistent with
engagement and its usage of
hashtags, while coming across as
robotic in tone. They have an
opportunity to own this digital forum
by connecting with its audience by
providing more meaningful content.
Over 3 Million followers, McDonald’s
is frequently posting an of average
600 or more likes per post. They
reply to posts on an hourly basis with
a positive and uplifting tone. Replies
are regionally relevant, and video is
utilized in every other post.
Twitter is used by Starbucks to
engage its audience more effectively
than any other platform. There are
frequent polls and discussions.
Opinions are invited and heard, and
retweeting of positive comments and
referrals by the customers boosts the
credibility of the brand.
Twitter is overall Burger King’s most
successful digital forum as they are
aiding, troubleshooting, and having
on-going conversations with their
customers. Burger King keeps up
with current trends and the
latest viral videos/jokes that are
popular among social media, helping
them stay relevant to Millennials and
GenZ.

7. Instagram
Instagram is overall Tim Hortons
most successful digital forum; new
products launches, charities, and Roll
Up The Rim To Win comprise this
feed. This social media channel is by
far the most focused and often
updated commanding consistent
likes on each post. Similar to Tim
Hortons other digital media, its
Instagram feed still lacks posting
frequency, engagement, and hashtag
usage.
With over 3.7 Million followers,
McDonald’s is sporadic with posts.
They are sometimes very active for a
few weeks or can be silent for
months. They consistently reply to
posts with a positive & uplifting tone.
Likes range from 600 to 1.5K. They
also use hashtags in almost every
post.
Starbucks has the same strategy and
content for Instagram as its Facebook
page. 18.4 M followers have been
engaged with frequent posts and
conversations.
Burger King is not very active on
Instagram. Burger King does promote
new products and promotions
however they lack in engaging with
their followers as most of the
comments go unnoticed and are not
responded to. They lack any hashtags
for their posts. They have a lot of
room for improvement as Instagram,
if used correctly, can help them gain
a lot more popularity.

8. YouTube Experience
Tim Hortons YouTube channel
features multilingual content. This is
a channel that is not often
frequented, with a low amount of
views per video and little to no
engagement. The exception are the
Roll Up The Rim To Win or their
sponsored sport programs, which see
spikes in viewership and consumer
comments. Content for this platform
Should be fast paced, engaging, light,
and focus on the consumer’s stories.
McDonald’s has garnered millions of
views across the globe as their
YouTube channels vary globally.
They have a fun family-
oriented tone that is positive and
uplifting. Many of their videos
showcase real life experiences
associated with the brand.
McDonald’s has turned off the
comments section in each of their
videos. Hence, there is no discussion
within this channel.
Starbucks posts high quality videos
with a focus on the stories of people
within the Starbucks community and
the impact of the socially responsible
programs of the organization. These
videos are motivating. However,
comments are turned off.
The brand’s Youtube channel is used
for uploading the latest commercials
that are airing. They are seen to
range from 2K to 5 millions views on
videos with over 100 comments. This
platform lacks consistency in posting
and replying back to the comments.
This space could be used to make
light, fun, and entertaining videos on
any aspect of the business itself.

9. Recommendations
for
Tim HortonsCONSUMER ENGAGEMENT
Tim Hortons misses the mark on social media engagement. The brand’s social media often
becomes a complaint box (especially Facebook). Tim Hortons needs to frequently address
feedback on social media, as their competitors have done. The customers should feel they
are being heard and that the brand is receptive to their complaints.
FREQUENCY & CONTENT OF POSTS
Posts to social media are often infrequent and uninspired. As it stands, Tim Hortons mainly
uses social media for promotional posts, but more creativity is necessary to build a digital
voice that rivals its competitors. The brand is often unaware of current trends, and these
trends must be utilized to effectively connect with your audience on social media.
SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND TONE
On social media Tim Hortons has failed to develop a consistent brand tone, despite having
strong brand values. All other competitors have found success humanizing their brand voice
on social media.

10. Conclusion –
Continuing to Build a
Canadian Icon
Tim Hortons must create an online persona that is reflective
of the Canadian and neighbourly in-store experience its
customers have come to love. Digitally, the brand is severely
lacking in activity and connecting with its audience,
something all its competitors have mastered. To remain a
cultural icon and the go-to coffee/breakfast brand for
Canadians, the brand must learn to adapt to an ever-
changing digital landscape.

11. Social Media Overview - Facebook

12. Social Media Overview - Twitter

13. Social Media Overview - Instagram

14. Social Media Overview - YouTube

15. Social Media Overview - Website

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