Nick Noorani Website

Savvy businesses setting sights on Canada’s ‘1.5 Generation’

When the research group Environics recently highlighted Canada’s fastest-growing consumer segments, the online seminar about Chinese and South Asian shopping habits was so popular, it had to be run twice. And earlier this year, Ipsos-Reid launched a new 3,000-member multicultural research panel of “new and ethnic Canadians,” telling marketers that they “cannot afford to see these groups as small niche segments.”

Increasingly, for richer insight, information about Chinese and South Asian consumers is being cross-cut with the length of time they have been in Canada. One study pinpointed how long an immigrant woman might cling to the Pantene shampoo popular in her homeland before giving it up for Head & Shoulders, L’Oreal Vive Pro, or Clairol Herbal Essences. Chinese women, for example, make the switch after 11 years in Canada, according to Environics.
This slicing and dicing of how first- and second-generation Canadian consumers spend differently is revealing a hard-to-define but interesting new subset known as the “1.5 Generation.” These are Canadians who were born abroad, but immigrated as children and grew up here.
They are kind of invisible, statistically speaking, but Canada’s oldest fur trade brands and its most hip-happening fusion restaurants alike have them on the radar. One of the best examples might be Vancouver’s Aritzia clothing chain for young women.
“This ‘1.5 Gen’ is very misunderstood,” said Alden Habacon, manager of diversity initiatives at the CBC and founder of Schemamag.ca, an online magazine that focuses on the 1.5 Generation. “All that we have been focused on in the last 10 years is the recent immigrant or the not immigrant, and a little bit about the second generation.
“There are a lot of similarities between 1.5 and second gens, but some distinct differences in that 1.5 are more emotionally and psychologically connected to somewhere else at the same time.”
For ease, Statistics Canada basically lumps together 1.5 and second-generation Canadians, he said. “Once you have been in Canada more than 10 years, you go from immigrant to foreign-born.”
“What Stats Can has told us, [however], is that this generation is more affluent. They travel more. They are more culturally mobile and more influential both in immigrant and mainstream communities. And, they are very much a part of mainstream Canada,” said Habacon.
The 1.5 impact starts early.
“At a young age, they get exposed to impressions and behaviour at school and they bring all of that home,” said Gautam Nath, director of Environics cultural markets research. “They influence purchasing at the shopping cart. While new immigrants might stick to traditional foods and move away from them only on occasion, if they have 1.5 children, items like pasta, spaghetti, pizza and burgers become more regular shopping basket items more quickly.”
After this, the picture gets a bit cloudier. “I think most companies are confused. They are not sure how to approach this 1.5 Gen,” said Habacon. “They are ethnic, but not just ethnic.”
He cites T&T Supermarkets, the Richmond-based supermarket chain recently purchased by Loblaws, as being a place where 1.5s “can feel like they are connected to their roots, but not ostracized, not feel like they are living in the fringes. It’s very mainstream.”
Other examples that come to mind for Habacon are fusion restaurants such as Hapa Izakaya or the Guu chain that “give a sense of walking into a bar in Japan.”
He added: “They come across as second-generation businesses, but when you eat there, you get a sense that they are quite tied to their Japanese roots, that they are run by people who are still travelling frequently, still intentionally wanting to keep feet on both sides of the fence.”
Outside this realm, Vancouver-based clothing chain Aritzia is hailed for suavely courting this segment.
“They really give women an impression that they are buying something unique,” said Habacon. More specifically, “they were one of the first retailers in Vancouver to really hire who they wanted to sell to. They looked at the high schools. Who’s driving the nice cars? They figured out who has the money and hired them. They didn’t market to them. They didn’t advertise. They just hired them and have built these people into their brand.”
Aritzia says it doesn’t have anything as contrived as ethnic hiring targets. It has, in the past, along with other print media campaigns, taken ads in Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao.
Mostly, however, “we are very responsive to customer needs,” said senior marketing director Sally Parrott. “We have a very diverse sales staff that’s not just Asian but that goes across a number of different ethnicities. That’s our primary focus, hiring women that are aspirational to our customer, young women that they can relate to.”
She admits that sizing-wise — because the company targets women from the ages of 15 to 22 and then 23 to 25 — “we go down to smaller sizing, and Asian women, who tend to have a smaller body type, appreciate that.”
So, who else might be eyeing these 1.5 Gens? Last year, when Hudson’s Bay Company, the grand old dame of Canadian retailing, appointed Bonnie Brooks as president and CEO, it highlighted her experience in “leading designer brand stand-alone stores in Asia.”
Brooks, a Canadian, came to HBC from her most recent posting in Hong Kong as president of the Lane Crawford Joyce Group, which oversees brands in more than 500 locations across nine Asian countries.
Sure enough, soon after, Brooks spoke of dramatic plans for HBC such as shrinking floor space for household goods and ushering in many more, hip, international brands that appeal specifically to a growing number of upwardly mobile Asian consumers.
Habacon said that just as marketers have clocked baby boomers, they should know that 1.5 Gens are now getting married and growing up. Where they used to think nothing of spending $300 on a pair of jeans, their priorities will change as life turns to investments and monthly payments. “They’re dual income now, but they are looking at bigger purchases like houses and cars. Before it was just Aritzia, but you will see a shift,” he said.
jlee-young @vancouversun.com
http://www.vancouversun.com/Savvy+businesses+setting+sights+Canada+Generation/1876223/story.html