Canada is a breeding ground for word of mouth. We love to impart knowledge and info about stuff to our family, friends, neighbours and acquaintances. Check out the trail of facts:
- Canadians disdain advertising - according to Arnold, 67% of respondents claim, “I have a lower tolerance for hype than I used to.” and 62% say, “There are just too many commercial messages for me to be bothered paying attention anymore”
- Canadian place little importance on the mass advertising of brands - 44% of Americans place weight on this factor while only 17% of Canadians do
- Canadians are connected - 72% of Canadians are online, receiving 80 messages/day and averaging 13.5 hours/week in usage - all stats near or at the top of the world rankings
- Canadians are cosmopolitan and highly urbanized - most large Canadian cities outrank their U.S. couterpart cities on quality of life and 4 out of 5 people live in urban situations
So if we're so connected, taste driven and curious, what brands and products do we talk about as Canucks?
After polling over 700 Canadians on our panel back in October'05, we got our answers and the results will surprise. Below is the list of the 41 word of mouth-able brands in Canada (ranked in order of frequency):
Brand | Company | Category | |
1 | Mr Clean | P&G | Household |
2 | Swiffer | P&G | Household |
3 | I-Pod | Apple | Electronics |
4 | Xbox | Microsoft | Games |
5 | Tide | P&G | Household |
6 | Apple | Apple | Electronics |
7 | Tim Hortons | TDL | Hospitality |
8 | Pepsi | TDL Group | Beverage |
9 | Rogers | Rogers | Communications |
10 | Coke | Coca-Cola | Beverage |
11 | Dell | Dell | Electronics |
12 | Ebay | Ebay | Online |
13 | Crest | P&G | Health & Beauty |
14 | Aveeno | J&J | Health & Beauty |
15 | Canon | Canon | Electronics |
16 | Sony | Sony | Electronics |
17 | Walmart | Walmart | Retail |
18 | Bell ExpressVu | BCE | Communications |
19 | Campbells | Campbells | Food |
20 | Costco | Costco | Retail |
21 | President's Choice | Loblaws | Food |
22 | Garnier | L'Oreal | Health & Beauty |
23 | Lush | Lush | Retail |
24 | Fisher Price | Mattel | Games |
25 | McCain | McCain | Food |
26 | Lysol | Reckitt Benckiser | Household |
27 | Glade | S.C. Johnson | Household |
28 | Starbucks | Starbucks | Hospitality |
29 | Telus | Telus | Communications |
30 | Toyota | Toyota | Automotive |
31 | Dove | Unilever | Health & Beauty |
32 | Canadian Tire | Canadian Tire | Retail |
33 | Online | ||
34 | ING | ING | Financial |
35 | Pampers | P&G | Health & Beauty |
36 | Pet Plan Insurance | Pet Plan Insurance | Financial |
37 | Safeway | Safeway | Retail |
38 | Playstation | Sony | Games |
39 | Tyson | Tyson Foods | Food |
40 | Suave | Unilever | Health & Beauty |
41 | Westjet | Westjet | Travel |
The biggest eye-opener is the sheer variety of categories that have products on the list proving that no category can defend against a product with strong word of mouth.
The other interesting insight is the amount of products at the very top of the list from everyday, typically "non-sexy" categories, evidence that what we like to talk about most is likely the stuff around us (congrats to the Mr. Clean eraser folks - the amount and emotional attachment to this product was truly hard to comprehend).
It may be surprising that there aren't a lot of entertainment-related brands that bust through on the top list but given the sheer multitude of industry offerings, although there were many overall responses, no individual offering had enough numbers to breakthrough into the top tier. The same can be said for word of mouth's most responsive category - restaurants
Disappointingly for mature categories like automotive and alcohol beverage, there is only one of their brands on the buzz list. This really should be an alarm bell to companies in this industry that price will become even more paramount asd a busienss driver if innovation and more grassroots methods for generating word of mouth are not created vs. a lot of undifferentiated and mass marketed offerings we've seen over the last decade.
I'm curious to know what you're talking about now and why , drop me a line on your most buzzable brands.
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