Canada’s largest free daily newspaper announced on Monday it is launching Metro Life Panel, inviting readers from Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Ottawa to participate. The online research tool – already in use by about 13,400 Metro readers in Denmark, France, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Spain and the US – enables two-way online communication with readers.
Metro plans to interact with panelists to not only glean demographic data, but to elicit their opinions on various topics and publish the results in the next day’s paper. Part of the plan is to show panelists advertising creative for pre- and post-campaign testing, to determine impact, awareness and perceptions. The results – broken down locally, regionally, nationally and internationally – are to be delivered within 72 hours. The advantages for advertisers and agencies, said group publisher for English Canada Bill McDonald, include ‘gaining exclusive insights into the metropolitan audience(s), their lifestyles, purchasing habits and how best to reach them.’
Readership of Metro‘s six Canadian editions stands at 846,000, according to the most recent NADbank data. Internationally, the paper is published in over 100 major cities in 20 countries across Europe, Asia and North and South America, attracting 20 million daily readers who are mostly (70%) under 45, active and well-educated.
