The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Tims brews up fresh Bieber deal
Promotion with pop star widens
Tim Hortons will launch a Justin Bieber-themed coffee next month as part of a partnership with the Canadian pop star that has lifted sales and attracted a younger audience to the coffee chain.
The French vanilla cold brew coffee, called Biebs Brew, is the second product that Tim Hortons has developed in collaboration with Bieber, following the Timbiebs line of Timbits that exploded in popularity over the winter.
The Bieber doughnuts, and the branded tote bags and toques that were sold alongside them, were so successful that financial analysts who follow Tim Hortons’ parent company have been anticipating the program’s return.
Tim Hortons announced on Tuesday that the new coffee will be available starting on June 6. Timbiebs will return to stores on the same day.
The Bieber cold brew comes as Tim Hortons continues a push to make itself relevant to younger coffee drinkers. The brand spent the last two years trimming its menu and upgrading ingredients in an attempt to regain consumer confidence in its basic offerings, like coffee and doughnuts, which had started to droop in quality.
This month, Tim Hortons owner Restaurant Brands International Inc. said the second phase of its turnaround plan will involve expanding into cold beverages, a $4.5-billion dollar market in Canada that is popular with younger audiences.
“They’re not necessarily coming to us for hot brewed coffee in the morning on the way to work,” said chief marketing officer Hope Bagozzi, who joined Tim Hortons in 2020 after a long career at Mcdonald’s.
The last partnership with Bieber caused an influx of traffic to stores, to the point that the chain saw a material lift in same-store sales growth, a metric used to measure year-over-year growth in retail.
Bagozzi said the surge in demand during the Timbiebs launch was good practice for franchisees, who are now facing a more complicated product launch with a cold brew that takes 16 hours to steep.
“A cold brew product isn’t something that you can make quickly,” she said.
“So restaurant preparedness is pretty key.”