Advertising Gone Wasted

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half – this is a 100 years old quote that stands true for many ad campaigns even today. I saw few ads where 100% money was wasted and I think the advertisers have no clue.

The following ad appeared in a Georgetown, Ontario newspaper trying to reach South Asians with a divine public service message. Besides the models standing on the wrong sides of the flags, the ad targeted a geographical area where hardly any South Asian live. Can you guess how many South Asian families live in Georgetown? According to my findings, THREE, yes THREE.
The above advertisement ran several times in a wrong medium spending $1,000+ per household, basically putting thousands of $$$ down the drain and it was public money intended for a good cause

Grocery Stores Eye South Asian-Canadians

I have been telling my colleagues and clients that Grocery stores will be the next business sector that will target South Asian Canadians. And this was no rocket science. I saw following three signs for it.

1. Immigrants’ Life Cycle: Most South Asian (SA) are new immigrants. They look for products and taste from “back home” and also buy more groceries per visit because they have bigger families.
2. Developing of a critical mass: The SA- Canadians became the biggest visible minority group as per 2006 Census and have attained a critical mass with an estimated ~1.5 million people now.
3. Opening of neighborhood SA-grocery stores: More SA Grocery stores have sprung up in last few years with constant flow of customers providing an existing market to big box Grocery stores.

The above three factors collectively provide a ripe market for Grocery stores to cater, increase customer base and sales, and get loyal customers

Come 2010, we saw an attempt by big grocery stores to reach out to SA market segment, primarily with print ads and with some radio and TV advertising. I see these initial campaigns as more of a test or tactical implementation in nature rather than strategic. Only results, research and time will tell how effective these ad campaigns were in achieving the campaign objectives. Though I will provide my opinion on this soon. For now, see few of the print ads below. These ran during last few months.