2021 Multicultural Strategy Tip #3

2021 Multicultural Strategy Tip #3

How do you tap the 10M multicultural market this year? In this blog series, we give you five strategies that you can use as a guide when you formulate your marketing plans for the multicultural audience in 2021.


Mabuhay! Add Filipino Canadians to Your Acquisition Brief.

THE FACTS: The Filipino population is one of the fastest growing Asian populations in the country. By 2021, the Filipino population is expected to reach 1M, representing a 150% growth rate. They are the #1 source of immigrants to Canada.

How can your brand grow your customer base?

OUR TAKE: Consider adding Filipinos to your consumer acquisition strategy. This ethnic group has a significant spending power (average net worth is $446k higher than the general population $442k).

Filipino Canadians also have the lowest unemployment rate (5.9%) amongst newcomer segments and 60% of them have a college or university degree.

To learn more about our multicultural strategies, see tip #4 and contact Shaharyar Irfan and Gideon Lin.


2021 Multicultural Strategy Tip #2

2021 Multicultural Strategy Tip #2

How do you tap the 10M multicultural market this year? In this blog series, we give you five strategies that you can use as a guide when you formulate your marketing plans for the multicultural audience in 2021.


Get on WeChat and Weibo. Seriously.

THE FACTS: With over 1.6M Chinese Canadians, this audience is young (average age 38), affluent (23.2% of Chinese Canadians earn up to $150k in gross income per year versus 16.1% of all Canadians) and growing as the #2 source of new immigration and international students to Canada.

How can your brand connect to this audience?

OUR TAKE: Get your brand on WeChat and Weibo. Chinese audiences have strong preference to consume media in their native language, so brands need to step up and meet them on the app of their choice – WeChat and Weibo.

There are over 1M users on WeChat and over 0.6M monthly active users on Weibo in Canada. This group is socially very active and spends an average of 35+ hours a week on WeChat alone.

To learn more about our multicultural strategies, see tip #3 and contact Shaharyar Irfan and Gideon Lin.


2021 Multicultural Strategy Tip #1

2021 Multicultural Strategy Tip #1

How do you tap the 10M multicultural market this year? In this blog series, we give you five strategies that you can use as a guide when you formulate your marketing plans for the multicultural audience in 2021.


Be inclusive. Develop a Multicultural Marketing Model.

THE FACTS: Consumers are demanding diversity with the rise of Black Lives Matter movement and call for representation for black, indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC).

How can your brand be more inclusive?

OUR TAKE: Start by building a multicultural marketing model. Connect to customers through a cultural lens – authentically. Language is part of this, but not entirely as many multicultural audiences are of mixed heritage or speak multiple languages. Look beyond the ethnic background and identify the right passion points and hotspots for your audience.

To learn more about our multicultural strategies, see tip #2 and contact Shaharyar Irfan and Gideon Lin.


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

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.


Birthday and a New Tattoo: The (Her)story Behind AVC's Rebirth

Birthday and a New Tattoo: The (Her)story Behind AVC's Rebirth

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

“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)

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.

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

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.