AVC CEO Joycelyn David tells Narcity why multiculturalism is key to growing your Canadian business in 2021
AVC CEO Joycelyn David tells NARCITY why multiculturalism is key to growing your Canadian business 2021
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From 2021 to 2023, Canada aims to bring 1.2 million immigrants to compensate for the shortfall in 2020, the year hit by a global pandemic.
With over a million new people entering Canada from different parts of the world, Canadian businesses need to start thinking about turning this diverse audience into new customers.
"The future is bright because the market has awoken to something we’ve known for 20 years, diversity is good for business."
— AVC CEO Joycelyn David shares in her interview with Narcity.
These newcomers are not the only source of growth. So are the diverse Canadians who are now living in the country. That is why multiculturalism is a key factor to consider when marketers formulate their growth strategy for 2021.
David reveals five ways on how Canadian businesses can successfully tap into the multicultural market. Read the full article, click here.
For Canadian brands who would like to dip their feet into multicultural marketing, start by chatting with the experts. Contact Shaharyar Irfan, or Gideon Lin.
ETHNIHUBTM Study Reveals Ethnic Shoppers Prefer Familiar Food Brands from Back Home
ETHNIHUBTM Study Reveals Ethnic Shoppers Prefer Familiar Food Brands from Back Home
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A recent ETHNIHUB study by AV Communications reveals that over 80% of ethnic shoppers spend more than $100 on groceries during each store visit. Spending big dollars on food does not come as a surprise. Immigrants from Chinese, South Asian, and Filipino backgrounds live with extended family members.
When they arrive in Canada, they also bring with them their culture and traditions. Their style of cooking, their unique taste, and yes, their favourite food brands. The same study confirms 75% of ethnic shoppers prefer food brands they’re familiar with from back home.
This is the reason why food marketers have been paying more attention to ethnic shoppers in recent years.
According to Canadian Grocer, some $12 billion in additional grocery store sales will be attributed to immigrants. It’s a figure Canadian food retailers simply can’t ignore, and they’ve taken great strides to cater to ethnic foodies.
Loblaws acquired T&T Supermarket, Canada’s largest Asian food retailer, and has launched a halal food brand called Sufra in 2017 to cater to the Muslim community. Sobeys, the second-largest food retailer in Canada, launched Chalo! FreshCo store in Brampton, Ontario in 2015. The first store in Canada for South Asians. It was meant to attract South Asian shoppers with the widest variety of South Asian brands under one roof.
The Canadian food landscape is more diverse than ever. Proof that multiculturalism has become mainstream, especially when it comes to food. AV Communications Owner and CEO Joycelyn David explains, “A great example is Grace Foods. As a brand with roots serving the Caribbean diaspora and community, they now appeal to many diverse shoppers, including my Filipino-Canadian household, where coconut milk and corned beef are beloved food items!”
Birthday and a New Tattoo: The (Her)story Behind AVC's Rebirth
Birthday and a New Tattoo: The (Her)story Behind AVC's Rebirth
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It has been a little over a year since Owner and CEO Joycelyn David took the helm of AV Communications in 2019. Learn More
It really is a rebirth of sorts for the 17-year-old multicultural agency as it went head-to-head with COVID-19, closed its doors temporarily at Spadina Ave. to work-from-home, and helped brands keep its head above water during a global pandemic.
All this happened shortly after the agency has undergone a big change itself.
If you’re curious to hear how it all started, then check out Jason Swenk’s interview with David in his Smart Agency Master Class Podcast. It’s the number one podcast where real agency owners share trade secrets for growing their agencies.
Listen to the podcast here: Click here.
And if you want to know how a historic birthday, quitting a successful corporate job, and getting a new tattoo has to do with running an independent agency, contact @Joycelyn David.
Research Game-Changer: AVC CEO Joycelyn David talks to Strategy about its multicultural insight platform, ETHNIHUBTM
Research Game-Changer:
AVC CEO Joycelyn David talks to Strategy about its multicultural insight platform, ETHNIHUBTM
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“My role in the multicultural space is trying to get everyone on a level playing field of understanding.”
AVC CEO Joycelyn David shares this bold vision in a recent interview with Strategy for AV Communications’ proprietary digital research platform, ETHNIHUBTM.
Borne out of a need to get into the minds of multicultural consumers faster and easier than employing traditional market research methods, ETHNIHUBTM aims to be a game-changer for brands who want to understand ethnic consumers, right now. Not later.
David tells Strategy, “Knowledge is power. But not if it takes months to analyze and then act on.”
Launched in October 2020, David says that ETHNIHUBTM is designed to connect marketers with real-time multicultural insights that not only give voice to the consumer but also verify the authenticity of insights.
“Validating insights is so important in multicultural, and if you don’t have consumer-generated feedback, it’s easy to fall into cultural biases,” David further explains.
She ends the interview by stressing the importance of always being on when engaging with diverse communities.
“It’s great you want to do a Diwali or Chinese New Year campaign and you’re recognizing it’s a season to connect with those audiences, but it’s not the only time to connect. You need to be always on, as the market is always on,” David tells Strategy.
To read the full article, click here.
For agencies and brands interested in an ETHNIHUBTM demo, contact @Shaharyar Irfan or @Gideon Lin for more information.
Respondents can sign up for free at www.ethnihub.ca.
Four for Four: AVC Takes Gold at the 2020 Summit International Awards (SIA)
Four for Four: AVC Takes Gold at the 2020 Summit International Awards (SIA)
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AVC bags a winner in all four categories entered at the 2020 Summit International Creative Awards (SIA). The team took home 1 Gold for the new AVC logo and 3 Silvers for creative work in TV commercials, website and original print creative.
The Summit Creative Award recognizes and celebrates the creative achievements of small and medium sized advertising agencies worldwide with annual billings under $30 million. They have established themselves as an arbiter of creative excellence by providing validation of award-winning work over the past 26-years and functions as a respected, international, industry-wide critique.
This year’s panel of judges included communication experts across disciplines. They are former Summit winners, designers, agency owners, authors, scholars, and industry experts from across the world. Using a blind judging process to assess entries between others in their category, they use their vast experience and knowledge to identify the best of the best, season after season.
Congratulations to our Creative Art Director Hassan Iqbal, Business Director Shaharyar Irfan and the entire AV Communications Inc. and Arbor Memorial Inc. Team!
ETHNIHUB™ Connects Marketers with Real-time Multicultural Insights.
ETHNIHUB™ Connects Marketers with Real-time Multicultural Insights.
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AVC launches proprietary reward-based platform
generating consumer insights from diverse Canadian audiences.
By 2031, 47% of visible minorities in Canada will be children of immigrants. 350,000 new immigrants enter Canada each year, along with 400,000 international students. It’s no wonder the multicultural population in Canada is skyrocketing. How can brands tap into this large, fast-growing, and diverse consumer market?
Insights, Insights and More Customer Insights
“Everything starts with the customer” explains Joycelyn David, Owner & CEO of AVC. With ETHNIHUB™ we aim to connect brands to diverse audiences and help answer their most critical marketing questions.”
Since our beta launch in Q4 2019, ETHNIHUB has generated insights from questions and topics such as: What kind of tea do South Asian buyers prefer? What do Filipino families look for in a financial provider? What luxury brands do Mainland Chinese immigrants prefer? What would Halal consumers want to see on Canadian QSR menus?
Today, the questions being asked by brands in Canada, on an increasing basis, represent a massive paradigm shift towards diversity in business strategy and marketing campaigns.
Paradigm Shifts and Speed to Insight
“We’ve definitely seen a shift with Canadian brands wanting to engage with multicultural and diverse audiences” Joycelyn adds. “Knowledge is power. But not if it takes months to analyze and then act on. Helping our clients with speed-to-insight was a critical piece of our development and design.”
Developed inhouse during the “down-time” of the global pandemic, ETHNIHUB recently landed Joycelyn and AVC a spot in Microsoft’s Women in Cloud Accelerator. Joycelyn credits the development team Abhinav Sood, Hassan Iqbal and Shaharyar Irfan who worked on all aspects of the UX, front end design and product design.
Respondents can sign up for free at www.ethnihub.ca.
Agencies or brands interested in a demo can contact @Shaharyar Irfan or @Gideon Lin for more information.
Woman in Cloud: AVC CEO Joycelyn David Joins 4.0 Cohort of Microsoft Accelerator
Woman in Cloud: AVC CEO Joycelyn David Joins 4.0 Cohort of Microsoft Accelerator
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Within just over a year of acquiring Toronto based multicultural marketing agency AV Communications (AVC), CEO Joycelyn David is set to take it up a notch. A trailblazer in Canada’s multicultural marketing industry, she spearheaded the development of ETHNIHUB™ which landed her a coveted spot in the Microsoft backed Women in Cloud Accelerator.
Women in Cloud (WiC) has become a leading community and resource for women innovators all over the world and has been able to scale globally to 9 countries. Having graduated over 22 women-led companies, 25 enterprise-ready solutions, $50M in opportunities created, and 20+ jobs created and bagging major media coverage for Women in Cloud on Microsoft, GeekWire, TechNative, Times of India, CIO Dive, Small Business Trends, and more.
WiC recognizes the power and importance of marketing technology in today’s marketing ecosystem. With the massive shift this year in media consumption and the way many businesses and industries operate, we’re certainly looking forward to watching the 4.0 cohort of WiC unfold in a purely digital landscape and what the future holds for women entrepreneurs.
Press Release #HealthNotHate Survey Shows Alarming Levels of Anti-Asian Prejudice Due to COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada
Press Release #HealthNotHate Survey Shows Alarming Levels of Anti-Asian Prejudice Due to COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada.
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#HealthNotHate Survey Shows Alarming Levels of Anti-Asian Prejudice Due to COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada.
Leaders from Canada’s multicultural marketing and film/television communities rallied together to launch a #HealthNotHate campaign and nationwide survey to better understand the spate of rising anti-Asian incidents. The survey was conducted in May 2020 and sampled 1250 Canadians from all backgrounds, including 250 Chinese Canadians.
Racist Incidents Experienced by Chinese Canadians
The survey showed that one in five Chinese Canadians have experienced some kind of racist incident as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 19% of those who identify as Chinese Canadian surveyed said that they had “personally experienced racism during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Many of the survey respondents who experienced racism shared stories of being targeted with insults or questioned by passers-by and even store staff while shopping. Others were targeted by fellow passengers while using public transit. Often wearing a mask would trigger the insults.
Prejudiced Attitudes Among the Canadian Population
The survey also found a significant minority of the Canadian population hold prejudiced views of Asian Canadians as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, 14% of Canadians agree with the statement “Chinese Canadians are more likely to carry the COVID-19 virus than other people in Canada” and 14% agree that “Eating in Chinese restaurants in Canada is less safe than eating in other types of restaurants due to COVID-19.”Almost one in four (23%) of Canadians agreed with one of the statements that were used in the survey to identify prejudiced statements.
“That level of agreement with prejudiced statements is a concern and those views will no doubt potentially contribute to racist attitudes and even actions,” said Sonny Wong who started the #HealthNotHate campaign. “Most alarming to me is how prevalent these attitudes are among younger Canadians” said Robin Brown from the research company, Dig Insights who designed the survey. The survey showed that agreement with prejudiced attitudes was even higher among Canadians aged 18 to 34. A third (32%) of those aged 18 to 34 agreed with at least one of the prejudiced statements.
About the Study
These are the results of a survey conducted May 13th to May 18th, 2020 using Logit’s consumer research panel LOOP among a sample of n=1,000 Canadian adults designed to be representative of the Canadian population in terms of age and province. The precision of these survey results can be calculated using a credibility interval with a poll of 1,000 accurate to +/- 3.5 percentage points. An additional n=250 online interviews were conducted specifically among those who self-identified as Chinese Canadian recruited from Ethnic Voice Accord and AV Communications’ Ethnihub™.
Canadian Communications Leaders And Community Come Together To Combat Racism Amid COVID-19
Canadian Communications Leaders And Community Come Together To Combat Racism Amid COVID-19
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A grassroots group of concerned citizens and professionals from the marketing and film/television communities in Toronto and Vancouver have rallied together to produce an Anti-Racism Campaign — #HealthNotHate. The objective is to combat the misconceptions about the COVID-19 virus and counter a spate of anti-Asian incidents, along with many unreported cases, that have taken place across Canada and North America amidst the global pandemic when a new strain of the virus is misconstrued to trigger the time immemorial problem of discrimination.
#HealthNotHate aims to redirect this discourse with the view that health is the national imperative, where diversity contributes to a functional, inclusive and prosperous society.
“While COVID-19 is new, racism is not,” says Sonny Wong, one of the founders of the initiative. “At this moment, the whole world is focusing on saving the lives of its people and heightening measures to defense against the pandemic which has tested public confidence in our medical care system and our economy like never before. But it is equally important that we should not turn a blind eye, nor a deaf ear to ungrounded racial discrimination that is inflicting more devastating wounds to our society.”
Produced within 4 weeks, and entirely by voluntary and donated efforts, #HealthNotHate has attracted seasoned marketing experts and a who’s who of the film and television community. Talents for the campaign include luminaries such as Russell Wong, Ludi Lin, Osric Chau, Louis Ferreira, Tzi Ma, and others, all supported by ACTRA/UBCP.
AVC takes GOLD at the 2019 Summit International Creative Awards
AVC takes GOLD at the 2019 Summit International Creative Awards
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Out of more than 4,500 submissions from 27 countries, AVC won GOLD in the 2019 Summit Creative Award competition for its creative work for Arbor Memorial.
The Summit Creative Award recognizes and celebrates the creative achievements of small and medium sized advertising agencies worldwide with annual billings under $30 million. Celebrating its 25th year, the Summit Creative Award has firmly established itself as the premier arbiter of creative excellence for firms of this size and has become a coveted honor.
This year’s panel of esteemed international judges included professionals representing the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Germany, Kazakhstan, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Congratulations to our Art Director Zeno Lam and the entire AV Communications Inc., and Arbor Memorial Inc. team!