This summer, Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons made quite the splash: The brand covered one of its Québec locations in blackout materials to promote its new dark roast coffee. Equipped with night-vision goggles, employees handed guests samples of the brew, and the action was all captured in two-minute videos, later posted on YouTube to the tune of 2.6 million–plus views.

Tim Hortons’ head marketer, Peter Nowlan, found the experience a big success for the chain. “The dark roast is Tim Hortons’ first new blend in the company’s 50-year history, and we wanted to put it to the ultimate test: allowing guests to try it in the dark, limiting their sense of sight, and enhancing their senses of taste and smell,” he says.

Large-scale marketing stunts like these are few and far between, but when a quick-service brand does employ them, consumers take note.

“Many brands, especially older legacy brands, have to work harder to stay relevant to a younger generation of less loyal customers constantly looking for what’s cool and what’s next,” says Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Technomic. Whatever the expense to companies may be, the resulting public-relations blitz usually pays dividends, he adds.

Advertisers today are focusing heavily on social media and buzz marketing, so anything a brand does locally on a grand scale will likely be shared and tweeted to people far and wide, Tristano says. “This reminds consumers about brands and their role within the restaurant industry,” he says.