Making Canadian offers pay off: it's a responsive audience - but only if you market well

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, June, 1990 by Susan Hovey

NEW YORK CITY-U.S. publishers marketing their titles to Canada could find a healthy response to offers, but only if they tailor their mailings, says Steven Shure, assistant circulation director for Time Inc. Magazines' Americas' Division.

"You should be careful with the Canadian consumer," he warned, speaking at the recent Publisher's Multinational Direct conference. "You can really do yourself a lot of harm if you come across as patronizing."

Packages that work in the States do not necessarily achieve the same results in Canada, Shure explained. "You must test, you must segment, you must learn all the different marketing techniques that exist. If you attempt to convince them that your U.S. product is Canadian, it will backfire."

At the very least, he added, publishers must recognize key regional differences: For example, the province of Quebec contains a large French market, while Ontario exhibits a more British flavor. "It's important to remember that, culturally, Canada is a very diverse country," said Shure. "There is not the type of melting-pot mentality that exists in the United States."

The payoff is that Canadian consumers can be more responsive than their U.S. counterparts.

"There is a true lack of saturation in Canada," Shure explained. "The average Canadian receives approximately 50 percent of the direct mail that the average U.S. consumer does." (Others in attendance said the figure may even be closer to 25 percent of the U.S. amount in some instances.) That translates to less competition in the mailbox.

"In the States," Shure said, "[marketing plans] tend to have a short life. Canada hasn't gotten to the point where they're as jaded about the things they receive in the mailbox." Shure added that Time has been more successful with premiums in Canada. "We get more bang for our buck because there is less competition in promotional techniques."

That bang will become increasingly important next January, with the arrival in Canada of a goods and services tax of 7 percent, Shure noted. "We are going to have to incur and pass along a price hike in 1991."