Canada - Urbanized Word of Mouth

I've always referenced the 80-20 rule when it comes to where Canadians live - 80% urban/20% rural.

Roy MacGregor in The Globe and Mail takes an interesting step back and wades through the new census data muck and points to only 54% of our population living in communities above 100,000 people (which he argues is a better modern-day Mendoza line for a city).

The others stats - 18% live in 133 towns that number 20,000-99,000, 15% in 500 villages of 5,000 to 19,000 people and another 13 percent live in tiny burgs under 500 people.

The stats are interesting and accurate and his conclusion is right, Statcan should redefine what a city is using 2007 intuition not 1885 yardsticks. However, from a word of mouth influence standpoint. although Canada is made up of 5,000 towns, the centres of buzz and influence number no more than 5-10 cities and are heavily concentrated in three (Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto).

That's what makes Canada so interesting and viable for word of mouth marketing. Our influencer-driven word of mouth eminates from cities and those cities make up a huge part of the population, cultural, media and marketing backbone of Canada. Seed the right small numbers in these major centres and watch buzz fly throughout Canada.

From a strict population count, let's do a Canadian mega city vs. US mega city analysis.

Canada's Top 3 Metro Areas (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) - 10.9 million people
Canada's Population Count, 2007 -33.1 million people
% of Canadian Population in top 3 cities - 33% of total population

US Top Three Metro Areas (NYC, LA, Chicago) - 41.3 million people
US Population Count - 303.6 million people
% of US Population in top 3 cities - 13.6% of population

The reality is that if you run a localized word of mouth campaign in Toronto. Montreal and Vancouver and your grabbing a big chunk of the population and a majority of the emerging buzz.

Do the same thing in the US and you'll miss big pockets of important word of mouth in Boston (education), San Jose (tech), San Francisco (innovation), Detroit (auto), Dallas (energy), Washington (politics), Atlanta (southern  growth), Seattle (corp. tech) and Miami (latin culture)..never mind countless others.

As much as we talk about the two solitudes (French and English) in Canada and the havoc that can reap on running a business and dominate our media conversations, conversely, we are a country of 3 mega- word of mouth transmitting centres - sounds much more manageable , doesn't it?