Displaced by fire, a white goose takes flight in search of a new home. Chased off by vultures, it can’t settle anywhere. It crosses oceans, deserts, storms. Then, suddenly, below: snow, holiday lights, a house beside a lake. The lonely bird peers through a window at a family decorating a Christmas tree. It looks up to find a Canada goose welcoming the migrant into its flock—a flock of various feathered types, presumably all forced from their original homes too.
This sixty-second spot aired in 2022 and was intended to induce a craving for, of all things, dark roasted brew. Marketing long ago gave up the hard sell in favour of coaxing us into fuzzy feelings: love, pride, nostalgia. Tim Hortons has maybe done more than any other Canadian franchise to test the fuzzier limits of that strategy. For sixty years—the company marks its anniversary this month—the coffee and donut chain has tried to connect consumers with the idea of Canada as the cold country with a heart, or, more specifically, with “the shared values and traditions of Canadians being kind to each other and making everyone feel welcomed,” according to Hope Bagozzi, the company’s chief marketing officer.
