For 35 years, the Balmoral Multicultural Marketing has been at the forefront of Canada’s evolving marketing landscape, guiding brands through the nuances of reaching culturally diverse audiences.

Today, as others scramble to catch up, Balmoral remains a master at crafting original creative for authentic, relevant campaigns that reach beyond traditional Canadian demographics.

Sharifa Khan (pictured above), founder and CEO of Balmoral, says she’s honoured to be a pioneer in Canadian multicultural marketing. As an immigrant who came to Canada from Hong Kong in 1975, Khan knows what it’s like to not see one’s self in marketing messages and the desire people have for advertising creative that reflect their lived experiences. 

“I saw the need for greater emphasis on newcomers to Canada because I was one myself,” says Khan. “I felt that brands were not paying enough attention to this growing population. That vision started my journey.”

Balmoral’s tagline is, “We saw it then. We see it now,” and it’s proven prescient. 

The agency has continuously grown as brands strive to build more authentic relationships with customers and better represent them. Brands are also seeing the opportunities they’ve been missing for incremental reach. Nearly 10.6 million Canadians identify as members of visible minority groups, representing about 26.5% of the total population, according to 2021 data from Statistics Canada and 2023 figures from Statistica Canada. 

Khan says two key ingredients behind Balmoral’s success are consumer research and a robust in-community market presence. 

“I tell everyone you need to keep your feet on the street and pulse on the beat,” she says. “That’s how we stay in tune with the needs of consumers. That’s a differentiator for us and takes a lot of time.” 

Canada Life and OLG have both seen results from Balmoral’s approach. The brands successfully worked with Khan’s team to create campaigns that reach multicultural markets, demonstrating the benefits a targeted approach can achieve. 

Building “Rituals” with Canada Life 

Canada Life, which has worked with Balmoral since 2019, first engaged the agency to make a meaningful connection and grow familiarity and brand consideration with multicultural Canadian groups like South Asian, West Asian and Chinese Canadians.

“For life as you know it”, the campaign for Canada Life shows colourful Chinese, South Asian and West Asian rituals, traditions and practices associated with good fortune.

With insurance being a high-touch category that requires trust, Canada Life needed bespoke creative to reach new Canadians, for which the company had no prior brand equity. 

The result was “Rituals,” a campaign that sought to connect the brand with multicultural audiences by showcasing customs and traditions associated with key life moments like buying a new home or starting a business. 

Balmoral’s insight was that although the audiences Canada Life was seeking to reach were diverse, the emotions of those moments were a common thread.

“We’ve been intentional, not just taking our mainstream advertising and translating it or trying to fit it into the market,” says Andrew Morris, VP of brand and sponsorship at Canada Life. “We’ve learned from working with Balmoral to use bespoke advertising that fits the various audience segments.” The campaign resulted in 19.2 million video completions and 164,000 clicks, surpassing previous benchmarks. It also delivered 57.2 million impressions, 108% more than planned. 

Creating winning moments with OLG 

In Ontario, OLG’s gaming participation and frequency of play had decreased, particularly in the lottery category, and there was a perception of loss and low chances of winning. Additionally, there is often a perception that the games are a waste of money. 

Research showed consumers reacted positively to messaging that highlighted personal and community benefits such as seeing other winners or how lottery profits are distributed through charitable organizations in Ontario. Balmoral’s insight for OLG was about community – that when you play, everyone wins. 

OLG’s “Sounds of Ontario” shows how to “bring home the win” using a montage of community scenes and an audio mnemonic that cleverly reinterprets the classic OLG win tone.

The agency communicated this “dual win” potential and giving back to the community simultaneously with creative that combined slice-of-life shots paired with positive community moments underscored by the sound of a winning OLG ticket that plays each time someone discovers they win online or in-store. The display and social ads ran across dedicated multicultural-targeted platforms and events to reach the target audiences. 

“We use a personal win to motivate, and a community win to drive brand love,” says Tyler Puley, director of marketing communications, enterprise brand & marketing solutions, OLG. “This approach ensures that our multicultural communications strategy is aligned with our mission of fostering community success through individual participation.” 

The “Sounds of Ontario” results exceeded previous benchmarks by 98%. In all, 7.6 million video completions occurred during the campaign period from September 2023 to March 2024. Chinese Canadians drove lower funnel activity, contributing 72% to total conversions with account activations and registrations on the OLG website.  “Balmoral’s extensive and pioneering experience in the multicultural space sets them apart as an ideal partner for OLG,” says Puley. “They bring a blend of strategic intelligence and tactical + operational acumen, resulting in insightful creative packages that align perfectly with our business requirements.” 

Stay tuned for more on Balmoral’s industry-leading multicultural marketing insights as it celebrates its 35th anniversary with strategy.