A more complex group than might be assumed, the 1.7 million Canadians who patronize office supply stores at least once a month are 60% more likely than average Canadians to drive a new leased car. Yet they’re 75% more likely to have lost a job or been laid off in the past two years. Here are more facets of BBM’s sketch of 6% of our population.

• This group of shoppers is 2.2 times more likely than other Canadians to spend, on average, $100 or more a month on cell phones;

• They are 60% more likely than average Canadians to drive a new leased car;

• This group is twice as likely as average Canadians to have spent $200 or more in the last month at restaurants for business reasons;

• And they’re twice as likely to attend film festivals in their spare time as average Canadians;

• As for education, this group is twice as likely as average Canadians to have taken continuing education courses on executive or management training in the past three years;

• At the same time, frequent office store shoppers are 75% more likely to have lost a job or been laid off in the past two years;

• Frequent office store shoppers are also frequent Yellow Pages users, being twice as likely as average Canadians to have looked something up in the Yellow Pages or on YellowPages.ca today;

• The top three media by yesterday exposure for Canadians who shop monthly at office supply stores are TV (89%), Radio (87%) and Internet (75%);

• News (34%), Adult Contemporary (27%) and Hot Adult Contemporary (22%) are the top three formats by weekly radio reach for these shoppers;

• The top three television program types watched in an average week by this group are Movies (52%), News/Current affairs (50%) and Suspense/Dramas (45%).

Source: BBM RTS Canada, Fall 2007 (Individuals 12+), a syndicated consumer-media survey of over 65,000 Canadians, conducted twice a year by BBM Analytics. For more information, contact Andrew Currie of BBM Analytics: acurrie@bbmanalytics.ca.