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Marketers hoping to reach immigrant Canadians need to connect using old and new media BY MATT SEMANSKY
When Joe March began working in multicultural marketing and media 20 years ago, the field was still a relatively small marcom niche. But in the 2006 Census, more than 200 different ethnic origins were reported. More than five million people were members of the visible minority population, representing 16.2% of the total population in 2006, up from 13.4% in 2001. Multicultural marketing is a niche no more.
"We are a country that identifies with cultures outside of our borders," says March, director of Toronto's Diversity Media Services, a planning and buying firm that specializes in linking marketers to the communities that form Canada's cultural mosaic.
Recent research indicates that two of the country's largest cultural groups may be changing their media habits in a way that could change how people like March do business. According to a study released by Solutions Research Group last December, the Internet has usurped television and radio as the medium of choice for Canadians of Chinese and South Asian descent-the nation's largest minority groups.
The survey focused on the Toronto area, which, combined with Vancouver, is home to the vast majority of Chinese and South Asian Canadians. Solutions Research Group reported that 82% of Toronto's Chinese population had used the Internet within the...