In the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, with a population of 730,000, local leaders worried that its recreational programs weren’t attracting many of its diverse constituents. To better serve these families, Recreation and Parks Department managers employed PRIZM C2 to develop user profiles for its varied programs—from aquatics and fitness to sports leagues and social events. Michelle Oliver explains how her team applied data on demographics, lifestyles and, most important, social values, to better understand the mindset of infrequent users. In this session, she discusses how Mississauga turned psychographic insights into effective marketing initiatives to connect with underserved, ethnically diverse constituents.

Two years ago, Ontario Tourism used PRIZM data to define target groups that would help it promote Ontario as a premier destination for in-province visitors. But when EA recently updated its PRIZM system and released a number of new datasets, the tourism group wondered what impact the changes might have on its marketing efforts: How have its original target groups changed? Have their travel patterns and demographics shifted significantly? Are they watching the same TV shows, reading the same magazines or using the Internet more? And is there a better way to identify and reach Francophone Ontarians? In this session, Mary-Ann Lanyon discusses how shifts in new PRIZM C2 data led Ontario Tourism to update its messaging and marketing strategies, and helped it create the latest ads that are enticing Ontarians to travel within the province.

When Wade Luzny joined the Canadian Wildlife Federation in 2005, he could easily sum up the amount of information known about its supporters: “We had no direct knowledge of them,” he recalls. No longer. Today, the charitable organization uses a myriad of geodemographics, social values and financial data to profile donors, prospects and even the subscribers to its many publications. In this session, hear Wade talk about the maturation of the group’s approach to fundraising while increasing its understanding of its 300,000 members and supporters for the many programs to preserve Canada’s wildlife.

Carlton Cards may be the largest greeting card manufacturer in Canada but, like all other consumer packaged goods companies, it still must maximize productivity in limited retail shelf space when selling its merchandise. To determine whether Carlton was making the most of its display space by offering the right mix of cards, the Mississauga-based company used Envision and PRIZM C2 for an analysis of the demographics, lifestyles and competitive pressures within each trade area. Now, with the ability to produce a 20-page executive report on any store trade area in just ten minutes, Jim Driscoll knows whether to stock a local rack with children's birthdays cards, "happy retirement" cards or more traditional sentiments. In this session, he reports on his efforts to tailor his product assortment to local tastes and explains how the results increased Carlton’s meaningful connections with its customers.

Two years ago, the United Church set out to better understand its 3,400 Canadian congregations and ensure its programs and messages resonated with its members. Turning to PRIZM, the church created trade area reports of each community “to help our congregations connect with the neighbourhoods around them,” explains Robert Dalgleish, who oversaw the project. Local administrators then used the information to deploy community-appropriate outreach programs, make better use of existing buildings and even merge and move church locations if the data warranted it. In this session, Rob talks about how the sometimes difficult process of change wrought by marketing analytics “helped clarify our sense of purpose.” It’s a message that both businesses and not-for-profits can apply to make meaningful connections within their own communities.

Rogers Communications boasts millions of customers across Canada for its cable television, Internet and home phone services. But the media giant came to EA with a very specific marketing question: Could its advertising agency use the same creative and copy in Atlantic Canada as it was using in Ontario? To determine the answer, analysts used PRIZM C2 to develop detailed profiles of Rogers customers in a number of provinces, compared their demographics, lifestyles and social values, and then integrated the results into their agency and media strategy. In this session, Dana Gheorghiu recounts the challenges posed by cross-province marketing programs—and how her team solved them using a little art and a lot of science.

One of Canada’s preeminent public opinion researchers and writers, Michael Adams has spent his career tracking social change in North America and its implications for marketers, managers and politicians. Here, he discusses the latest news from the Environics Institute which is dedicated to the study and execution of opinion research on issues of public importance.

With consumers spending more time online than ever before, companies are launching new services almost daily to compete in the digital marketplace. And that’s where measuring online audiences for marketing intelligence—the work of comScore Media Metrix—comes into play. In this session, Brent Bernie provides an in-depth look at which sites are getting traffic and what makes them sticky. What categories are hot? How big is social media and video? And how do Canadians compare to Internet users in other countries? In the midst of all this digital activity, even measurement technology is constantly being enhanced to keep pace with the growing demands of the marketing community. Join Brent and immerse yourself in a “digital minute” on the Canadian trends and the new Panel Centric Hybrid measurement approach.

Serving over seven million people from Lake Simcoe to Lake Erie, Toronto’s CTV television station used to sell advertising the old-fashioned way: offering a handful of major demographic groups bought by the “media tonnage.” But that broad-brush approach to broadcast advertising undervalues the strength of television. By using PRIZM C2 clusters to profile its viewers, CTV now offers targeted packages to key customers and lets advertisers pick and choose the programming best suited for their needs. Paul Street, who is also chairman of the Canadian Advertising Research Foundation, advocates using quantitative and qualitative research for functions as diverse as programming, news, channel branding and sales. In his session, he discusses how CTV’s approach to advertising has evolved to embrace the benefits of micromarketing in broadcasting.

To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rich are different from you and me—especially when it comes to how they respond to marketing. Just ask Holt Renfrew. The classy retailer to the elite shopper wanted to make sure that its January catalogue reached the right prospects who most closely resembled Holts' distinguished clientele. So it turned to EA analytics to target and rank which neighbourhoods should receive the hefty book. Then, to measure ROI, Holts assessed the response rate of prospects versus customers and compared the direct mail initiative to a previous newspaper insert campaign. In this session, Pierre Montagnier details the catalogue promotion and analyzes the results, providing fascinating insights into the high-end shopper.