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Environics Research Group was retained to conduct a survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the Financial Benefits for Canadian Families advertising campaign on behalf of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC). In total, 1,203 telephone interviews were completed from March 7-15, 2011 with a representative sample of Canadians living in the 10 provinces and an oversample of parents of children under the age of 18. The Government of Canada has maintained a long-standing commitment to help support families with young children by offering and funding a variety of services and financial benefits, including child care benefits, tax benefits and savings plan options. The Financial Benefits for Canadian Families campaign is an advertising initiative that was designed to inform Canadian parents of the Government of Canada’s programs and financial measures that can help support families with young children.

Public Opinion Research Results

According to the Government of Canada’s Communications Policy, federal government advertising valued at more than $1 million must be assessed post-campaign to determine its impact and value. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the “Canada Apprentice Loan” advertising campaign using the Government of Canada’s standardized Advertising Campaign Evaluation Tool, or ACET survey.

The specific objectives of this research were to measure:

• unaided recall of the advertising campaign;

• aided recall of the advertising campaign by media;

• recall of key messages of the campaign; and

• awareness of who was responsible for producing the ads.

The results will be used by the Government of Canada to assess the effectiveness of the Canada Apprentice Loan advertisements.

An overview of apprenticeship (total and new registrations) and labour force statistics (labour force, number employed and unemployed, and unemployment rate) for the last six calendar years. Includes per cent change.

Demographic data for those enrolled in Ontario apprenticeship programs. The data covers 158 trades. For each trade, the data includes: * sector * Red Seal (yes/no) * total number of participants * gender * age cohort * number of approved sponsors * number of public training delivery agents * number of private training delivery agents

The number of individuals in high school registered in the RAP, the number of individuals who participated in RAP in high school who are now registered in a regular apprenticeship program, and the number of individuals who participated in RAP and have since become certified. The data is presented by trade for the most recent calendar year.

Public Opinion Research Results. Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) commissioned Opinion Search to conduct quantitative research with Canadians on the topic of the Universal Child Care Benefit advertising campaign. The research was performed to satisfy the Government of Canada’s requirement that all major ad campaigns be assessed using the Advertising Campaign Evaluation Tool. Specific objectives were:

• Measuring overall aided and unaided awareness of the advertising;

• Determining recall of the key campaign messages; and

• Determining awareness of who was responsible for creating the ad.

Public Opinion Research Results
Specifically, the purpose of the quantitative post-testing is to evaluate the 2013-2014 Skills Initiative Campaign and to gauge Canadians’ awareness/knowledge of the campaign as seen on television and social media sites. Information obtained through this public opinion research can be extrapolated to the wider population of Canadians and allows Employment and Social Development Canada to determine the impact of its advertising campaign and provide direction on areas where the campaign can be adjusted to reach a broader Canadian public. The findings provide useful information to improve future campaigns which are better targeted, more informative and better geared to the target population of working age Canadians under 55 and Canadians in general.

An awareness campaign was developed to raise the general level of understanding of this issue; and advertising took place in the Spring, Summer and Fall of 2009, with the fall wave ending on October 25, 2009. In accordance with Government of Canada Communications Policy, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) was required to conduct a post-campaign evaluation of the advertising initiative.

In accordance with the GoC’s Communications Policy, departments and agencies of the GoC are required to conduct a post-campaign evaluation of all major advertising initiatives exceeding $1,000,000 in media buys. In this case, post-campaign testing was conducted using the Advertising Campaign Evaluation Tool (ACET). The ACET survey instrument is a series of standardized questions to be included at the beginning of a post-campaign survey. The ACET telephone questionnaire including some additional campaign-related questions took about 7-8 minutes on average to complete.

Post-campaign quantitative telephone survey using the ACET research tool to evaluate the campaign.

The research called for a nationally representative telephone survey of the general population to be completed according to Advertising Campaign Evaluation Tool (ACET) guidelines. A questionnaire of approximately 10 minutes in duration was administered based on the ACET tool with some revisions to address specific issues related to the campaign and/or the target audience.

A total of 1000 Canadians, aged 18 or older, were surveyed from March 4th to March 10th, 2010, with a response rate of 12%.