An Extraordinary Year for Canadian Digital Marketing Under COVID

DM Magazine, February 3, 2021 – In this article, Ipsos’ Steve Levy contextualizes research and insights from the 14th wave of Ipsos’ Canadian Digital Marketing Pulse survey.

In 2020, our social culture shifted from a fear of missing out (FOMO) to a fear of going out (FOGO). Today, people share “air hugs” and send their kids to “Zoom school”. Since COVID-19 emerged, life and business changed in this outlier of a year. In the first five weeks of the New Year as the pandemic spread, we saw trends I’ve never witnessed in my career. Canadians reporting a threat to their personal health, finances and even the country, grew four-fold in this short span.

For marketers and agencies, these seismic changes have accelerated the shift to digital and added more complexity to the marketing mix. This makes it evermore challenging to plan for what may come next and what will stick.

These conditions showed up in this year’s wave of the Canadian Digital Marketing Pulse survey. We have shared our views on the “digital” world every year since 2006 based on an ongoing monitor of what client-side marketers and agencies are thinking and doing. Our objectives have consistently been to: measure familiarity and usage of digital marketing components/tactics amongst client-side marketers and agencies, gauge their sentiment on the current and future state of digital marketing, and integrate consumer perceptions.

In 2006, we considered 10 tactics under the digital umbrella. Over time, this number has changed and indeed some of the tactics have changed to reflect the market. In 2020 we considered fourteen tactics. You can see the full article and related report on the Canadian Marketing Association’s website.

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Enjoy!