When it came to Online Marketing Canada had a slow start in comparison with many other countries, especially the United States, the United Kingdom and some countries in the European Union. While marketing in Canada is still largely dominant on mainstream media or conventional mass media, there has been a paradigm shift in the last two years.
2010 saw the first substantially notable change in Canadian marketing practices. Large corporations had taken to online marketing long before then and they had been equally aggressive on television, print media and other marketing avenues but small to medium businesses in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal recognized the significance of a predominant online presence. The exposure offered by online marketing in Canada is phenomenal. Coupled with the exposure, it is the cost that makes all the difference.

Conventional strategies of marketing in Canada is much costlier than online marketing which is a more important reason why small to medium businesses in Toronto have become aggressive with their virtual presence since 2010.

The last three years has seen an unprecedented shift from conventional marketing in Canada to online or internet marketing. To put statistics into perspective, over the last two years (2011 & 2012) there has been a rise in online advertising expenses to the tune of 16% (average) on a yearly basis. The online advertising revenue in 2010 was $2.2 billion and by the end of 2012, that had risen to more than $2.6 billion. If revenue and the quantum of Canadian marketing and advertising happening online are collectively looked at, there is a clear shift, indicating where the future is going to be.

The omnipresence and influence of social media and social networks also have a significant role to play in this change of perceptions. Marketing in Canada is certainly not the same any more. The percentage of online marketing in Canada vis-à-vis other media is approximately 22%. In comparison with other countries, only the UK (35%), Netherlands (27.9) and Sweden (23.4) have a larger dominance of the virtual world. The US is at par with online marketing in Canada while France and Germany are just a tad behind.

A prime example of a large corporation that has “dabbled” a bit in Online marketing is McDonalds Canada. Starting in 2011 McDonalds set out to improve their image and brand (smart!) by creating the “McDonalds Your Questions Campaign” and the website http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.co/ as well as YouTube Channel was born. Since they have accumulated 14,325,454 video views (as of Feb 20-2013), and helped improve their brand/product image substantially by engaging their customers online.

While the predicted ill fate of newspapers and mainstream media may be a bit premature and unsubstantiated but the reality that Canadian marketing across Toronto and all major cities from hereon would be more online is beyond an iota of any doubt.