Canada's national Marketing Magazine held a Multicultural Marketing Conference in Toronto earlier this year and called upon one of the organizers of the Toronto's summer carnival festival (formerly called Scotiabank Caribana) to talk about multi-ethnic marketing.
Chris Alexander, the CFO of the carnival festival addressed a standing room only audience and told them that corporations and sponsors who ignore the city's multi-ethnic auidence are "missing the boat". He presented economic data about the impact of the summer festival to the approximately 200 attendees during his keynote speech.
Earlier in the conference people learned one in five Canadians are foreign-born, which is the highest proportion in the population since 1931. Chris Alexander told his audience that while the festival celebrates Caribbean culture (and attracts 1.2 million people in doing it), it is also attracting new immigrants from countries and cultures all over the world who come down to the parade to see what is going on!
Pictured above Chris Alexander, right, talks to two attendees of the Multicultural Marketing Conference, held in March at the Royal York hotel.
