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Canadians felt the need to stock up, despite most having provisions at the start of the outbreak. According to a study done by Dalhousie University, 63% of Canadians said they already had provisions at home, while 41% had purchased provisions during the outbreak. The most popular products among those who have shopped have proven to be dry and canned foods (30%), and non-food items including sanitary products, tissues and toilet paper (24%)

[Source: Dalhousie University].

For more information on:

• Where Canadians are shopping
• Their anticipated consumer behaviours post-Covid
• And their attitudes & perceptions

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OOH CONTINUES TO REACH CANADIANS

Since mid-March, we have experienced unprecedented disruption to daily life in Canada as provincial governments enacted Stay-at-Home orders for non-essential businesses and services. As a result, vehicular traffic on our roads have decreased to varying degrees and as an Out-of-Home advertising company, we are assessing, city by city, billboard by billboard, the weekly changes to traffic flow. Our early analysis indicates there are locations that have seen a significant decrease while a number of others have to a lesser extent, especially those that are in close proximity to essential service retailers such as grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and quick service restaurants.

We are committed to our tradition of transparency and therefore we will share our traffic pattern findings in the coming weeks as more data is analyzed. We thank you for your patience as we undertake this significant analysis.

OOH ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES FOR BRANDS AND BUSINESS

Since mid-March of this year, Canadians have experienced unprecedented disruption to daily life caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic especially as our federal and provincial governments rapidly enacted emergency measures to keep the public safe while working to slow the virus’s spread. When Stay-at-Home (SAH) orders for non-essential businesses and services went into effect, vehicular traffic on roadways dropped accordingly. As an Out-of-Home advertising company we know that it is the public’s daily exposure to our displays that has made our medium a go-to communication platform for brands and businesses. Therefore, by utilizing mobile/GPS data from Pelmorex, our location data provider, we are assessing, city by city, billboard by billboard, the weekly changes to traffic flow pre-COVID and during this SAH time.

WHAT WE KNOW TODAY

Traffic on roadways has decreased but has not disappeared. OOH’s strength has always been the fact that our advertising displays are within close proximity of where consumers work, shop and frequent for leisure and entertainment. Of these consumer touch points, shopping trips – specifically to grocery stores, pharmacies and liquor outlets – are still occurring during the SAH period. According to Leger, 71% of Canadians made a trip to a grocery store the w/o March 29.

The movement of the population, while reduced from pre-COVID, aligns with our early traffic analysis of OOH displays located near these essential service retailers. In fact, weekly traffic during March was more affected on high-volume commuter highways vs the traffic passing our OOH displays located within a 1-2KM radius of essential retail.

Therefore, there is opportunity for advertisers to reach Canadians when they are outside of their home during SAH and with messages on OOH displays that acknowledges the public and unifies the brand with the greater cause.