Assessment of Parks Canada’s 2018 Advertisement Campaign

Executive Summary

Contract Number: 5P004-170451/001/CY
POR Registration: POR 038-17
Contract Award Date: 13/09/2017
Date of Delivery: 17/08/2018
Contract Value: $43,311.77 (incl. taxes)

Submitted to Parks Canada
30 Victoria Street, Gatineau QC, J8X 0B3
information@pc.gc.ca
1-888-773-8888

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EKOS RESEARCH ASSOCIATES INC.

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Ottawa, Ontario
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E-mail: pobox@ekos.com

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Background

Parks Canada Agency (PCA) protects and presents nationally significant examples of Canada’s natural and cultural heritage and fosters public understanding, appreciation and enjoyment to ensure the ecological and commemorative integrity of these places for present and future generations.

Parks Canada’s advertising campaign has been marketed to an extensive demographic. PCA launched a national, two-year advertising campaign in early 2018 to promote visitation, free admission for children 17 and under, and to stimulate national pride in protection of Canada’s heritage places and participation in conservation. The advertising campaign attained its media peak in late Spring to early Summer 2018.

As the Parks Canada 2018 National Tourism Campaign exceeds $1,000,000, public opinion research is required by Treasury Board using the Advertising Campaign Evaluation Tool, with additional validating and benchmarking questions following the ACET instrument. Data collection to evaluate the campaign supports the Government of Canada’s goal of effectively gauging Canadians’ awareness and knowledge of specific 2018 initiatives (e.g., free admission to specific groups in 2018, conservation related topics), and determining the effectiveness of the campaign.

Research Purpose

Specifically, the purpose of the quantitative post-testing is to evaluate the effectiveness of Parks Canada’s national tourism advertising campaign employing the Government of Canada ACET and to gauge:

• Performance of ads (ACET generic questions)
• Unaided/aided recall of the ads;
• Understanding of the key messages of the campaign;
• Message recall;
• Support of Parks Canada mandate;
• Intention to visit Parks Canada administrated places in 2018;
• Unaided/total awareness of Parks Canada;
• Other Parks Canada specific metrics.

Information obtained through this public opinion research allows Parks Canada to determine the impact of its advertising campaign and can be used to inform the Parks Canada marketing team on areas where the campaign can be adjusted in future iterations. The findings provides useful information to improve future campaigns which are better targeted, more informative and better geared to the target population and Canadians at large.

Sample design

Two bilingual, national online surveys were conducted: one as a baseline, in advance of the campaign, and one following the height of the campaign to measure change in awareness and intent to visit over time, to assess impact of the campaign. The baseline included of 2,011 Canadians 18 years of age or older, while the post campaign sample included 2,039 Canadians, also 18 years of age or older. Each survey instrument included the Advertising Campaign Evaluation Tool questions used by the Government of Canada in all of its advertising evaluation research, along with additional questions testing impact on perceptions and behaviour targeted though the campaign. Each sample included randomly selected respondents from all provinces and territories. In addition to a minimum number of cases to be completed with residents in each region, a minimum number of completed cases was also established for each of the three largest Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) in each of the two surveys: Toronto (250), Montreal (250) and Vancouver (125-150). Beyond these three CMA’s, each sample was also intended to include minimum numbers in the following CMAs: Calgary (75-100); Edmonton (75-100); Winnipeg (50-75); Ottawa-Gatineau (50-75); and Halifax (50).

Each survey sample relied on Ekos’ Probit panel, which is assembled using a random digit dial process for sampling from a blended land-line cell-phone frame, and provides full coverage of Canadians with telephone access. The distribution of the recruitment process is meant to mirror the actual population in Canada (as defined by Statistics Canada). As such, our more than 85,000 member panel can be considered representative of the general public in Canada (meaning that the incidence of a given target population within our panel very closely resembles the public at large) and margins of error can be applied.