Canadian consumer behaviours have been greatly transformed by COVID-19. From media consumption to the way Canadians work and shop, in a blink of an eye, everything changed. Digital adoption has been fast tracked as people and businesses have had to innovate to go to school, work remotely, sell products and services, while maintaining communication with family, friends, colleagues, and business partners.

Homebound Canadians are watching more television and turning to trusted news sources, along with staying connected through social media, learning to cook and bake, and using their increased home time for home improvements or redecorating. Many of these new behaviours are expected to remain post-pandemic. With these changing behaviours, including higher levels of television and video consumption, marketers are looking into ways to re-allocate their ad budgets to ensure they are reaching their consumers in the most impactful and effective way. The ability to capture evolving consumer changes makes it difficult for brands to identify, understand, and connect with the right audiences on the right channels. However, in recent years, media suppliers and buying platforms have developed new consumer segments and introduced new tools to help marketers target their audiences in a timely manner.

Real time data, based on real time behaviours, is key to reacting quickly and accurately. Bell Media, for example, is leveraging its first-party data through its Strategic Audience Management tool (SAM)*, to hone in on consumer behaviours that have changed based on the pandemic, in order to activate tailor-made and precisely targeted segments.

Bell Media regularly uses its proprietary data to build segments based on current trends in order to target various groups of consumers and their behaviours. For example, segments which included baking enthusiasts who adopted the trend during lockdown, or those interested in an updated casual wardrobe while working from home, or audiences who were avid sports fan without live sports to watch, were all developed in a timely manner to address the current marketplace. Media buyers and planners can use SAM to make buys based on audience segments with targets, like  ‘beauty spenders’  or  ‘pet lovers’ that focus on behaviours rather than age or gender demographics. It also allows marketers to better plan, activate, and measure their campaigns, including the recent launch of attribution for linear TV, a first in Canada. SAM’s attribution feature shows the drive-to-web performance of TV campaigns by comparing the online behavior of consumers exposed to TV advertising vs. those not exposed. With attribution, SAM is establishing a direct cause-to-effect relationship (lift) between advertising and consumer response.

There is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and we expect to see consumer priorities changing at a rapid pace. Marketers are being tested to make faster and more informed decisions and there seems no better way to implement effective campaigns than leveraging the power of data.

To learn more about SAM, visit: https://www.bellmedia.ca/advertising-sales/sam-powered-by-bell/ *Bell First Party Data is privacy compliant and aggregated and anonymized such that individuals cannot be identified