June 9th, 2023, Clifton Mark
Canada’s Advertisers of the Month for May are Ford, Uber and Bud Light, meaning that these brands showed large increases in Ad Awareness for the month. Ad Awareness is a measure of the proportion of consumers that have seen an advertisement for a given brand in the past two weeks.
Ford’s Ad Awareness rose from 23.7% to 28.1% for a gain of 4.4 percentage points, earning it the title of Advertiser of the Month for May. As part of its “Built Ford Proud” campaign, the automaker has partnered with several celebrities to explore their relationship with particular Ford models.
Actor Sydney Sweeney talks about repairing and modifying her Bronco, surfer Kai Lenny shares how he uses his F-250 to haul his gear to the breaks and stunt driver Dee Bryant demonstrates skills such as drifting and donuts in a Mustang. These ads may be what growing numbers of Canadians have been noticing.
Ride-hailing/food delivery app Uber is May’s second Advertiser of the month, rising four percentage points from 17.4% to 21.4%. This growth in Ad Awareness may be related to a series of video spots featuring music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs that originated as a Super Bowl ad. The original ad has a group of executives attempting to commission Combs to write music for their ads. Combs responds that “Diddy don’t do jingles” but agrees to write them a hit. This ad was followed up with shorter spots featuring musicians such as Kelis, Montell Jordan and Donna Lewis making Uber-related versions of their hit songs. Norwegian duo Ylvis, producers of “The Fox (What does the fox say?)”, also make an appearance. Uber may also be expanding its advertising in Canada following a new decision to allow Canadian teens to open Uber accounts.
Bud Light has moved from a 17% Ad Awareness to 20.8% for a gain of 3.8 percentage points. The brand also showed strong gains in Ad Awareness in April (4.3 percentage points). While added attention is usually good for brand’s, Bud Light’s gains are likely related to ongoing controversy regarding their partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. According to a recent YouGov analysis, the damage to the brand following the controversy appeared to slow in May.
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Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. A brand’s Ad Awareness score is based on the question: “Which of the following consumer brands have you seen an advertisement for in the past two weeks?” Data from surveys of adults aged 18 years and above residing in Canada from April 26 and May 25, 2023. Ad Awareness scores are based on a four-week moving average. The change in scores for each brand is calculated by taking the difference between the highest and lowest scoring days within the period. Learn more about BrandIndex.