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The article discusses issues concerning the newspaper industry in Canada. Canwest Publishing aims to leverage the goodwill and brand power of its stable of venerable newspaper properties as it migrates content to digital formats. Newspapers in the country have done a better job adapting to the digital revolution than their U.S. counterparts. Part of that is due to the fact that readership measurement is tied less to the physical print product there than in the U.S.

This article reports that retailers are wagering on gift cards in the high-stakes consumer loyalty game. The humble gift card is turning into gold for retailers. While most Canadian retailers won't disclose figures, analysts say it's one of the fastest growing sales trends in North America. In the U.S., gift card sales reached US$45 billion in 2003, and are expected to hit $70 billion by 2006, according to J.C. Williams Croup in Toronto. In Canada, gift cards redeemed after Christmas likely contributed to a surge in January retail sales, which rose 2% to C$29.8 billion, over December, according to Statistics Canada.

The article reports that according to executive Walter Levitt, senior-level marketing and advertising executives have left Canada over the past decade to pursue a career in the U.S. The number of individuals who left Canada to live in the U.S. on either a temporary or permanent basis dropped from 113,000 in 2000 to 73,000 in 2006.

The article focuses on Ad Value Equivalency (AVE) as a public relations (PR) measurement tool. In the U.S., the Institute of Public Relations created a commission to look at PR measurement. Its discussion paper states the basic conceptual problem with AVEs. It suggests that a news story has an equal impact to an advertisement of the same size in that publication. The Canadian Public Relations Society created the Media Relations Ratings Points that omits ad value equivalency because of its lack of substance.

This article presents information on the controversy of advertising of direct-to-consumer (DTC) drugs in Canada and the United States. As a result of the controversy, the focus on the role DTC advertising plays south of the border--with many saying television advertising played a key role in the popularity of Vioxx and Pfizer's similar drug Celebrex, which were among the heaviest advertised drugs ever. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which in 2004 declared that DTC marketing was a positive educational influence on American health care, has now promised to step up policing of consumer drug advertising that make unrealistic claims.

The extra newspaper edition is enjoying a comeback in Canada, but advertisers might not sign on. The extra appears to be enjoying something of a revival, however sporadic. Many of the major dailies in Canada came out with an extra or special edition on September 11, 2001 when New York's World Trade Center and Washington's Pentagon were attacked by terrorists. Experiences of the publication of an extra or special issue of some of the newspapers are given. The key is whether advertisers find the extra edition to be a good environment to extend reach.

Posh potties at Edmonton's annual Klondike Days garnered a lot of attention from fairgoers. The Charmin washroom rejuvenation team transformed over 60 stalls in both men's and women's washrooms in the exhibition's AgriCom building with aromatherapy, potted plants, soothing music, TVs, uniformed attendants, and stocks of Charmin Ultra tissue and Bounty paper towels. The rejuvenation program started in the U.S. three years ago, says Sandy Smith, Toronto-based assistant brand manager for Charmin, a Procter& Gamble brand.

The reports on the emergence of podcasting as a tool for news broadcasting in Canada and the U.S. Canada witnessed its first ever news podcasting on May 7, 2005, when columnist John Sakamoto podcasted a spoken-word version of his newspaper column on alternative music. During his podcast the writer and critic talked about his picks of the moment and played brief clips of the music he recommended. On the other hand, in the U.S. at least a dozen newspapers are already podcasting.

The article presents statistics on a variety of topics, including the percentage of Canadian homes using compact fluorescent light bulbs in 2006, the percentage of electricity in the U.S. generated from fossil fuels and the number of plastic bags consumed in Ireland annually before the introduction of a 15-cent plastic bag tax.

The article presents information on the new MailMate junk mail shredder from Staples Business Depot Ltd. The company thinks every kitchen in Canada needs its MailMate. The company points to research indicating most people open mail in the kitchen. The MailMate is billed as a defense against identity theft. However, studies by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau say that the number of victims of identity theft has actually decreased.

Editorial. Focuses on the impact of lack of Canada's support to the U.S. war with Iraq on the Canadian advertising industry. Percentage of Americans who are likely to boycott Canadian goods; Canadian brands boycotted by people of the U.S.; Impact of lack of Canadian support to the war on the consumer economy.

About one-quarter of the Canadian population lives in Quebec. They are rooted in a French culture, exist in an Anglo-Saxon world and live an American lifestyle. They believe in enjoying life, and their Latin roots result in consumer behaviour that sets Quebecers apart from their English counterparts in the rest of Canada. Quebec has significantly more locally made productions than the rest of Canada. Local television is more important to Quebecers than in English Canada, where American channels have an impact on viewing habits.

The article focuses on the life and profile of Warren Reynolds, former chair and president of one of Canada's most storied ad agencies, Ronalds-Reynolds and The longtime adman spent more than 40 years in advertising, earning a reputation for being an astute business leader. His retirement in 1973 from the president's chair marked the end of a family dynasty that stretched back to 1924 when his father, Edward William Reynolds, founded the K.W. Reynolds and Company agency in Toronto. Reynolds has served as chair of the Institute of Canadian Advertising in 1960-61 and was the first Canadian chair of the Audit Bureau of Circulations for the U.S. and Canada.

The article presents the author's views regarding the misinterpretation related to milk moustache campaign. Recently two Canadian newspapers ran a major, spoon-fed wire article promoting the celebration of the U.S. "Got Milk?" moustache campaign's 200th advertisement. No mention of course that it is the 30th anniversary of the Canadian milk "Wear a Moustache" campaign. If you think the advertisement is part of the U.S. campaign then guess again. Of course many things happen by accident, but not this one. Milk is a commodity and all work is shared internationally by dairy bureaus and their agencies.

This article criticizes the approach of consumer marketing executive and entrepreneur Elliot Ettenberg for his contrived and inaccurate version of Canadian and American history. Ettenberg's disingenuous analogy of people huddling for protection in forts in Canada while the Americans strode forward homesteading is just so much nonsense. The Canadian forts weren't for protection of people, in fact, Canada didn't have any soldiers. These were private-enterprise forts, built for trading and protection against good old entrepreneurial thievery between Hudson's Bay Co. and Northwest Co. Both entrepreneurial concerns unmatched by anything in America at the time. The author's concern is not with Ettenberg's quest for more dynamic business success, but with his continual use of erroneous historical premises to give credibility to the need for it. The authors says that he is eagerly awaiting for an article from Elliott Ettenberg with some positive comments which can contribute to North American prosperity.