- Our Dark Roast coffee launch was an activation in which we created a unique experience for customers by completely blacking out a Tim Hortons coffee shop, allowing customers to experience the new coffee in complete darkness, thus heightening their sense of taste and enjoyment of the Dark Roast coffee.

- It was a promotional activity in which real customers were invited into the store to sample the new Dark Roast coffee in an environment that conceptually supported the idea that we were launching a new, darker roast of coffee.

- The sampling program, which we also filmed and posted online, was directly targeted at individual consumers, allowing them to sample the product, first-hand, in a memorable situation, simultaneously giving them a brand and product experience.

- The media team implemented the creative idea through a mix of bought, earned, traditional and non-traditional media. The original “Dark Experiment” sampling program was posted online as a video, generating social media conversation and earned media through traditional media outlets. Purchased media for all traditional channels leveraged the “Get Into The Dark” messaging consistently at all touchpoints.

- The campaign began as a seamlessly coordinated effort with traditional media launching after the online and social programs began, building on that momentum, and supporting the earned media across paid media channels with a national scope.

• The film we made of the sampling program has so far earned 2, 956, 614 views on YouTube and was the most viewed YouTube video in Canada in the first two weeks after it launched.

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• Our hashtag, #TimsDark became the #1 trending hashtag in Canada.

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• Overall, we earned over 156 million social media impressions, and 91 million media impressions from over 350 different news outlets.

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• Within four months of the launch, Tim Hortons had served 52 million cups of Dark Roast in a country of just 35 million people.