Category Benchmarking


Glass Half Full: Despite Popular Belief, Canada Ad Spending is On the Rise

August 29th, 2023 | Darrick Li, VP Sales, North America Media Owners, Guideline || Standard Media Index | SQAD | MediaTools | Lumina

It’s not new news that the pandemic upended every facet of consumer behavior – from travel regulations to entertainment shifts, and home DIY projects. But while society today operates in more of a post-pandemic fashion, many Canadian brands and advertisers are still coping with its impact – especially when it comes to advertising.

However, ad spending in Canada 1H 2023 said otherwise. And while the numbers may have been smaller compared to those from before the pandemic, the story is promising.

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Elevate Your Content Marketing Strategy Using Visuals

October 6th, 2022 | Ermelinda Maglione, Content Marketer, Venngage

Marketing today is difficult. Every sector and specialty produce more content, making it difficult to compete and stand out. The constant bombardment of information shortens people's attention spans.

However, you might achieve good results using the content you already have. One way to accomplish this is by including visuals. One image may become multiple, so you can easily update different channels.

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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 Put Canadian Brands Back Among The Most Influential

April 20th, 2018 | ACA Team,

This is the part two in a recap of the Ipsos Most Influential presentation. Our previous post covered the ingredients that make an influential brand, as well as how Samsung rebuilt its brand. How can Canadian brands gain more influence with Canadian consumers? That was the central question tackled by three leading brand builders during […]

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The Magical Mix That Makes These Brands So Influential

April 5th, 2018 | ACA Team,

This is the first of a two-part recap of the Ipsos Most Influential Brands presentation. Next week we’ll cover the unique challenges, and advantages of building brands in Canada, and how Google and Facebook are managing the responsibility that comes with influence. Being leading edge, trustworthy and engaging, having presence and being a good corporate […]

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