A national survey by Ipsos Reid for the Canadian Newspaper
Association reveals some interesting statistics about newspaper
advertising reading habits of Canadians. Sixty-six percent of
Canadians say that they enjoy reading the page advertising and the
product inserts that come with a newspaper. The percentage is
higher for women (70%) than men (62%), but 73% of households with
children enjoy doing so. While the percentage of those over 55
years of age who enjoy reading such ads is 71%, the percentage is
only 55% for those in the 18- to 34-year-old category. These
percentages decrease with increases in education, as revealed by
the fact that while 70% of those with a high school education enjoy
reading such ads, only 55% of those having a university degree do
so. Canadians living in the Atlantic region lead the country in
this regard with 74%, in contrast to those living in British
Columbia (63%) and Quebec (62%).
These facts can be converted to probabilities: The marginal
probability that a Canadian enjoys reading such ads is .66. Many of
the other statistics represent conditional probabilities. For
example, the probability that a Canadian enjoys such ads, given
that the Canadian is a woman is .70; and the probability that a
Canadian enjoys such ads, given that the Canadian has a college
degree is .55. About 13% of the Canadian population resides in
British Columbia. From this and from the conditional probability
that a Canadian enjoys such ads, given that they live in British
Columbia (.63), one can compute the joint probability that a
randomly selected Canadian enjoys such ads, and lives in British
Columbia (.13)(.63) = .0819 . That is, 8.19% of all
Canadians live in British Columbia and enjoy such ads.
It is plain from the information given here that many Canadians
enjoy reading newspaper ads. If you are a business in Canada, what
implications might this have on your marketing plan?
What do you think might be some factors that contribute to fact
that about 10% more of Canadians in the Atlantic region than in
other regions of the country enjoy reading newspaper ads?