Brand positioning
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Recently I posted on LinkedIn about Dunkin’s impending return to Canada, and how Tim’s was sure to counteract it by double-doubling down on its Canadian identity.
Turns out, Canadians are very passionate about this brand. And angry about it, too.
Hence the post’s 90,000 impressions and counting.
Below, for your convenience, you can read the post in its entirety. However, if you want to see all the comments and add your own (which I would love, and will answer), click here for the post on LinkedIn.
Here is a paste of the post:
Dunkin’ is coming back to Canada. Expect Tim’s to double-double down on its Canadian identity.
If you want to make Canadian-ness a vital part of your positioning, you at the very least must use Canadian spelling in your messaging.
Good Canadians will be able to see the obvious spelling mistake in this celebration of a huge moment in Canadian hockey history. Raising the error to the level of blasphemy is that it occurs at a physical and psychological location at the very core of our identity: centre ice.
Tim Hortons’ brand already skates on thin ice, given that it is owned by Restaurant Brands International, a Canadian company approximately 22% owned by an investment vehicle affiliated with Brazilian-founded 3G Capital, which acknowledged in its 2025 Annual Report that “So long as 3G RBH continues to directly or indirectly own a significant amount of voting power, it will continue to be able to strongly influence or effectively control business decisions of RBI.”
It will be fascinating to see how it all plays out. Mark Satov and his team at SATOV Consultants just released some proprietary research on Dunkin’s impending return, and the outlook may not be as dire as some might imagine amid a Canada-US relationship that is highly charged, to say the least, and therefore which could be negative for American entrants which have proudly traded, as Dunkin’s has, upon their American DNA.
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I, not AI, wrote this.
Andris Pone, BA, MBA
President
Coin Branding Inc.
andris@coinbranding.com
1 416 560 0928
www.coinbranding.com
