Blitz Magazine

While Canadians are still value-minded in store aisles, the desire for new products is becoming an increasingly influential factor in making purchase decisions, according to BrandSpark’s 2015 Canadian Shopper Study. The survey, done in conjuction with the voting for BrandSpark’s annual Best New Product Awards, asked over 65,000 Canadians identified as having a key role in household purchase decisions about their shopping habits. The desire for new products is strong among Canadians, with 78% saying they like trying them and 60% saying they believed new products were superior to old ones. Millennials, perhaps unsurprisingly, have the strongest interest in new products, with 85% saying they were interested in trying them, although 69% of seniors say the same. “Canadians always want to save money and get the best deals, but there’s a little more willingness to pay for that premium,” says Philip Scrutton, director of consumer insight at BrandSpark. “That’s always been there, but...

Bell Media Mix has partnered with Yellow Pages to help encourage Canadians to support their neighbourhood merchants by purchasing locally on Saturday, Nov. 29, it was announced today. Shop The Neighbourhood, a local shopping movement, is a corporate social responsibility initiative of Yellow Pages and encourages Canadians to make a local purchase and take advantage of exclusive event day deals offered by the businesses in their neighbourhoods. To spread the word and encourage Canadians to reflect on the importance of local businesses and drive them to Shop The Neighbourhood, Yellow Pages and Bell Media Mix have created an extensive multiplatform campaign deployed across the country in television, radio, out-of-home, and digital, leveraging Bell Media’s exceptional advertising reach. The campaign has been gaining momentum during the month of November with a phased rollout culminating on November 29, a special day when Canadians are encouraged to shop locally in their communities....

Radio’s in the media mix for Millennials but user-generated content tops the bill. Radio’s bread and butter are 25-54 year-olds , the demo most formats shoot for and most advertisers covet. But Millennials, all 77 million of them, are waiting in the wings. In fact millions of Millennials have already entered the crucial 25-54 demo and more do so every day. Millennials, also known as Gen Y, are forecasted to have record-breaking purchasing power. Radio’s still very much in their orbit but, like all traditional media, takes a back seat to the Big Kahuna of the Millennial media mix: user-generated content (UGC). Fully 30% of Gen Y’s daily media time is spent with content that is created by their peers, according to new research by social influence marketer Crowdtap and market research firm Ipsos. That’s more than is spent with such Millennial-friendly activities as browsing the internet (20%), watching live TV (10%) or playing computer or video games (10%). Millennials find UGC conte...

New report identifies the changing shopping behaviour of Canadians—and suggests how retailers can adapt - Deborah Aarts || February 26, 2014 Shoppers today aren't just pleased to shop with retailers who offer several ways to buy stuff—they expect it. In fact, former nice-to-haves (like an easy-to-access storefront, a ecommerce-enabled website and a mobile shopping app) are now becoming table stakes for Canadian store operators. This is one of the key takeaways of a new survey of retail expectations conducted by PwC. The survey polled more than 15,000 consumers (located in Canada and around the world) to get a sense of what, exactly, today's shopper wants when opening his or her wallet. According to a report detailing the research, "the bar is now much higher for retailers with world-class aspirations." This is not exactly news to any retailer struggling to compete in 2014. Changing customer expectations have made it extremely difficult for store operator...