“If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think.” – David Ogilvy.

Advertising is all about fostering engagements – engagements that breed conversations and ultimately blossom into relationships between brands and customers. Do you believe in flattering your potential customers by personalizing your sales message or do you falter by feeding them food of the masses? If you can relate to the latter, well, then it’s about time you realize that tea is not everybody’s cup of tea. In a country like Canada where ethnic consumers account for a handsome 7.7 million, a digit that Statistic Canada expects to balloon to 15 million by 2036, brands and marketers are overlooking a lucrative present and shimmering future.

How, you may be wondering?

By turning a deaf ear to the behaviors and lifestyles of this booming demographic. By essentially zipping their lips when marketers should inversely go all-in on the promising return on investment that Canada’s diversity has to offer.

Approximately 50% Canadians residing in Toronto and Vancouver, as of now, were born outside the country. Furthermore, they desire staying rooted to their culture. These juicy insights should give brands and marketers an impetus to devise advertising that goes beyond the incessant stereotypical, bland creativity targeted at the ethnic market.

However, there are brands out there who are welcoming aboard the future – by personalizing brand messages and experiences for this diverse wave of current and future Canadians. They’ve been carefully listening to the multicultural sector, which has equipped them in tailoring sales messages in a stylistic approach that speaks out and loud to the multicultural segment. A style that this segment can trust; an approach that this segment is evidently buying.

Its about time that brands break through the clutter and engage with the ethnic audience. For Canadian brands, returns lie in being daring, and risk, in being conventional. Brands that maneuver vigilantly hold an opportunity to scoop up the market share, and brands protruding a deaf ear will, without a doubt, be reciprocated with a deaf ear.