A campaign for Plan International Canada (formerly Foster Parents Plan) got under way earlier this month on Chinese tv networks and newspapers in Toronto.

The advertising uses children’s faces from developing countries and copy that Patrick Fong, president and creative director Can-Asian Advertising, says ‘echoes the target audience’s cultural background.’

‘It is a lot easier to persuade Chinese immigrants with what is already inside their heart and mind, than to impose something totally strange to them,’ Fong says.

Can-Asian is working as the Chinese market consultant for Plan International with its mainstream agency, Minor Halliday & Associates, also of Toronto.

Can-Asian also recently brought together its client, Standard Chartered Bank, with Ming Pao, a three-month-old Toronto-based Chinese newspaper, to attract the lucrative Hong Kong immigrant market.

Standard is offering free three-month subscriptions to Ming Pao to new depositors of $10,000 or more and promoting the offer through commercials on Toronto’s Channel 47, ads in Ming Pao, as well as posters in the bank, Chinese restaurants and bookstores.

Although Standard Chartered Bank has just one branch, located in Scarborough, Ont., it is one of the biggest and well-known banks in Hong Kong.

For the past five years, about 20,000 Hong Kong immigrants have entered Canada annually with an average of $200,000 each, so the race to attract this market is heated.

Standard hopes that immigrants will look on it as an ‘old friend from home’ as it goes for the gold against the Hong Kong Bank of Canada, the Bank of East Asia and CitiBank.