Situation: Baileys, although one of the most loved spirits brands amongst Canadians, needed to drive saliency across wider categories to defend its brand position while recruiting a new and next generation of adult treat lovers. As research shows, treating occasions are an important part of this demographic’s day, Baileys needed to find a way to insert itself into their conversations, hearts, minds and coffees. By cracking coffee, this would be the superhighway for the brand to recruit a new and next generation of Baileys lovers.

Brief: We needed to find a way to tap into local culture in a way that could elevate Baileys as a brand to be considered amongst consumers and increase product in hands outside the alcohol category.

Objectives:

- Position Baileys as a premium offering.

- Drive relevance amongst LDA-34 y/o.

- Tap into Canadian culture.

- Embed Baileys in everyday treating culture through in-store activations.

Baileys x Tim Hortons | A love story we didn’t know we needed.

After extensive research and product innovations, Baileys came up with the perfect ingredient to give the audience the ability to taste and be reminded of the delicious flavour of Baileys, by hacking one of Canadas favourite pastimes - drinking coffee. Since Tim Horton’s serves more coffee than any other brand in Canada, a perfect pairing was proposed leading to an unexpected holiday partnership that Canadians didn’t know they needed.

This delicious collaboration curated a love story of two time-honoured brands, who elegantly wove their identities together to create the ultimate holiday treat. This delightful marriage of flavours served as a warm, inviting treat for their coffee-loving fans, promising to bring a sprinkle of joy to festive holiday rituals. Adding a drizzle of magic, they transformed a mundane, daily ritual into a delicious moment of indulgence together.

o Target audience (consumer demographic / individuals / organisations): Through this delicious partnership between Tim Hortons & Baileys, one of our key objectives was to recruit the next generation and drive relevance among the LDA (legal Drinking Age) – 34 age group.

o Approach: To truly cut through and tap into the local Canadian coffee culture, we partnered with Canada’s most loved coffee brand Tim Hortons to create an indulgent menu of Baileys inspired (non-alcoholic) coffee serves, treats and in-store gift with purchase during the number one treating occasion of the year – the Holidays, ultimately driving relevance, visibility & consideration among the key target audience of LDA – 34’s.

o Implementation: To celebrate holidays, Baileys worked with Tim Hortons to create a festive menu of delicious non-alcoholic treats and drinks that combined the iconic flavours of Tims’ classics with the decadent taste of Baileys.

o Timeline: November – December 2023.

o Placement: The Baileys X Tim Hortons partnership deployed a robust 360 campaign ensuring mass reach, visibility & consideration for adults across the country, showing up across all touchpoints from TV, Radio, OOH, Influencer Content, Earned Media and In-Store Displays, through cross promotion in liquor stores across Canada with gift cards and hot chocolates to ensure that all adult Canadians were able to indulge at home during the holidays.

o Scale: From Toronto to Montreal, this was a partnership of mass, national scale, reaching every corner of Canada, truly bringing an extra sprinkle of deliciousness to all Canadian adults during the holiday season.

o Business impact – sales, donations, site traffic: During the period of the partnership, share on Original Irish Cream grew +27 BPS. For Tim’s the AUV has been the highest compared to any other Holiday season for any CPG partnership (post COVID).

o Response rate: N/A

o Impressions: This campaign received 805,007,050 impressions through all platforms utilised.

o Change in behaviour Baileys has been firmly positioned in the cultural vocabulary of the country.

o Awareness: Half of consumers recalled the partnership unaided, while 2 in 3 recalled about the partnership when aided. 1 in 3 of those aware have tried one or more products at the time of the survey.

o Perception: The majority of Baileys perceptions including excitement/ pride/ interest to see what’s next saw significant increases among those aware/tried. The majority of Tim Hortons perceptions also saw significant increases among those aware/tried along with future intent to visit.