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`True Stories' of Canada

Tim Hortons and the Branding of National Identity

St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada, pcormack{at}stfx.ca

This article discusses the connection between brands, national identity and the social and historic practices of the Canadian nation-state. Specifically, it examines the long-running `True Stories' ad campaign of Tim Hortons coffee shops, Canada's most successful quick-service restaurant chain. These ads insert Tim Hortons into customers' stories about travel, endurance and adventure, and authorize Tim Hortons itself as both the site and source of Canada's self-image.This authorization occurs in three ways: 1) by taking advantage of a space generated by overt, statist, bureaucratic management of Canadian identity and culture, 2) by locating national identity within mundane, sensual consumptive desire, and 3) by capitalizing on the ambiguities of articulating Canadian national culture, especially within the context of an officially multi-cultural project.

Key Words: branding • brands • Canada • coffee • consumerism • consumption nation • national identity • nationalism

Cultural Sociology, Vol. 2, No. 3, 369-384 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1749975508095617


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