Finding Your Audience In A Changing Demographic

July 28th, 2022 | Darren McAlmont, Manager, Communications & Content, Association of Canadian Advertisers

The pandemic has not only disrupted our behaviour, but the audiences marketers used to target have also changed, and they will continue to undergo change in the coming years. As marketers, we need to constantly stay abreast with who the population is so that we can make good decisions about the stories we want to tell, but more importantly, how we are going to reach the people we want to tell the stories to.

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#oneteam and Media: Built on a Strong and Sustainable Hybrid Model

June 14th, 2022 | , Raphaël Metter-Rothan, Media Director, Desjardins/ Charles Beaulieu, Partner and Chief Innovation Officer, Glassroom

The traditional advertiser / media agency relationship has been the subject of much discussion and questioning. Taking stock of the current situation means taking into consideration a number of the following issues: a loss of trust in agencies, the survival of the local media ecosystem, the increased sophistication of campaigns, and a growing need to use advertisers’ data despite its sensitive nature. No matter how we look at it, one thing is certain: many brands are looking to play a bigger role in their media activities.

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Sponsorship Marketing in 2022

February 3rd, 2022 | Ian Malcolm, President and CEO, Lumency

There is light at the end of the long COVID-19 pandemic tunnel.

Heading into 2022, brands are more optimistic than ever of what sponsorship can do in support of their measurable business and brand objectives.

As we look forward, with COVID-19 transitioning to endemic, sports, arts, culture, community, and music properties offer Canadians the opportunity to come together for human-scale experiences, leaving public health restrictions behind them.

Latent Demand for Live

IMI, the Canada-born global consumer research firm, has been tracking consumer sentiment related to the pandemic across thirty-nine country markets since early 2020. During that time, latent demand for live experiences has steadily grown.

As of December 2021, Canadians’ intent to attend live festivals was 43% higher than it was pre-pandemic, intent to attend community events was 48% higher, and live concerts 32% higher.

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Ad Spend Perspective: How Did Canada’s Ad Market Fare In 2021 and What Does it Mean for The Market as We Enter 2022?

January 26th, 2022 | Kelly Fedoruk, Senior Manager, Client Solutions, SMI

Picture it. It’s Q1 2020. Canada’s ad market was in a growth position vs the prior year, with January and February ad spend from the larger national advertisers tracking up +3% vs the same months in 2019. Then in March the pandemic took over, ad dollars began to leave the market, and Canada would face twelve consecutive months of YoY declines, the first five of which were seeing double-digit losses. Even the historically strong holiday period in Q4 saw less ad spend than the year before, finishing down -4%.

There was hope for 2021, but it started out soft, with both January and February spend unable to reach the same levels as we saw in pre-pandemic years. March 2021 was the first month where Canada saw cross-media ad spend surpass both March 2020 and March 2019 levels. Perhaps Canada was finally rebounding? Maybe advertisers were feeling confident enough to start spending again? Not so fast.

Q2 told us otherwise with ad spend still down -6% vs Q2 of 2019. If Canada had any hope of returning to pre-pandemic investment levels in 2021, it would have to be in the back half. We didn’t disappoint!

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How to avoid one of the biggest mistakes in social media marketing

December 1st, 2021 | Shazia Khan, Social Media Strategist, Globe Content Studio

Social media is no longer a fresh-faced rookie on the marketing scene – a fun, easy and effective way to get your name out there – it’s now a primary business engine. We rely on it to generate leads, push sales, provide customer service and analyze complex data.

Globe Content Studio, as a division of a major news outlet that reaches 20 million Canadians a month, has worked with a broad array of advertisers across every industry. We’ve learned how they think about, execute and extract value from social platforms, which means we’ve seen a lot of what works …and what doesn’t.

Many brands both large or small, in fintech or flower arranging, online or IRL, tend to make the same social media missteps. Which isn’t surprising, especially in 2021. But here’s the biggest one – and how you can avoid it.

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Why it’s never a good idea to squeeze your agency too hard. (Particularly now.)

November 17th, 2021 | Stephan Argent, Founder and Principal, Listenmore Inc.

Are you a marketer that wants to squeeze more from your agency? Do you feel like they should be doing more? Delivering better results? Turning things around faster?

All sound like good ideas, right?

What’s surprising in our experience is that while most marketers aspire to have their agencies deliver more, better and faster, their approach almost always ends up having the opposite effect. Particularly now.

Hit hard by the great resignation, agencies are already scrambling to retain employees and fill gaps left by those who’ve already left. And if you’re already feeling the effects as a client, stepping up the pressure and asking for more will likely only make a bad situation worse.

“Depending how hard agencies have already been squeezed, marketers could face rate hikes of up to twenty percent.”

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