It is certain that the Summer Olympics 2008 is generating tremendous excitement amongst sport fans, spectators, TV viewers, all forms of media, marketers, advertisers and ad agencies. Beijing Olympics is also broadcasting the sense of multiculturalism in all countries.

In Canada, the Chinese Canadian media is having a field day in reporting insightful news and updates on the outstanding performance of Beijing as the Olympics host, and the China team as the leading medal winners. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and mainstream English media in general are actively introducing China, Beijing, and the Chinese culture to Canadians that strongly respects multiculturalism. Many advertisers injected Chinese touches in their Olympic related ads to promote relevance. I believe these are very positive contributions to our multicultural industry.

For a marketer to succeed in culturally diverse markets , one has to be sensitive to the specific needs of ethnic groups, ...

To many people, Canada and USA are viewed as one North American market as they share quite a lot of similarities – Geographically, they are neighbours with less than 2% difference in size; Politically, both have a democratic government system and use English as an official language; Socially, both support a multicultural society. However, when you examine the two countries in detail, we could find significant differences between the two neighbours.
Although the two countries are similar in size, Canada’s population of 33 million is about one-tenth of that of the United States. In fact, Canada has fewer people than that of the California State. Due to the much smaller population size, and the immigration policy, we are fair to say that the impact of immigration and multiculturalism is felt and rooted more deeply in the Canadian market.
Canada’s population growth has always been fuelled by immigration. Before the 80s, immigrants were mainly from European countrieever ...