There’s been lots of research that paints in broad strokes the differences between Canadians and Americans, but there has been little that explains to marketers how these differences affect day-to-day consumer interaction with their products and services.

We know Canadians are more liberal, less religious and less bound to traditional values than Americans, but what does that mean when you’re trying to market convenience-food products?

That’s just one of the questions Palmer Jarvis DDB has attempted to answer with The Distinctive Canadian, the first report to come out of data collected in its massive new lifestyle study which compares English-speaking Canadians and their American counterparts (using information from a similar study by its u.s. parent company, ddb).

Pam Royl, director of strategic planning and research at the agency, says the report isolated four overall trends, which she refers to as The Liberated Canadian Male, The Adventurous Canadian, The Attractive Canadian and The Canadian Gourmet.

Among the implications? Marketers shouldn’t assume when marketing household products and services that the target is always female.

‘We have to take a harder look at what the male is doing whenever we’re marketing those types of products and services – see what kind of roles he’s playing, how much he’s doing, and the actual shopping experience itself, the purchase decision.

‘The majority would say `If it’s a household product, the female in the house is the one doing the shopping.’ Our study suggests we should take a second look at that.’

Royl says it was astounding to discover just how strongly American males hold to the traditional view of male/female roles.

To the statement, ‘The father should be the boss of the house’, 53% of American males answered in the affirmative, compared to just 34% of Canadian males.

Canadian men are much more likely to wear the apron in the relationship than American males, and seem to like being involved in parenting and running the household. Some 73% said they like to cook, 53% said they do most of the grocery shopping, 51% said they’d baked goods from scratch in the past year and 54% said they’d baked using a recipe from a magazine.

Royl says for Canadian advertisers, this means the gender role stereotypes that are prevalent in the u.s. should be avoided here.

Another major implication is that Canadians are harder to reach with advertising.

Canadians don’t watch as much television as Americans, says Royl, so advertisers have be more aggressive with their media and promotion plans. That means guerrilla tactics, getting out to where they are, and not just assuming a television campaign will reach the target.

Canadians are also more likely to enrol in loyalty programs and use affinity cards but are less likely to make purchases through catalogues or 1-800 numbers than Americans.