Canadian poll finds ‘bandwidth boomers’ driving the next wave of social networking

TORONTO, January 16, 2007 Teens and college students turned social networking into an international phenomenon, but a new Leger Marketing study sponsored by Kijiji Canada (www.kijiji.ca) has found that Canadian adults aren’t far behind the trend. In fact, they may be leading the charge when it comes to interacting online within their geographic community.

2007 trend-spotting reports cite a renewed importance on localization as opposed to globalization, and according to the Kijiji Canada/Leger Marketing survey, 73% of Canadians aged 30 and over rely on the Internet to search for local news and products to buy within their community, while 70% now cite the Internet as their resource of choice for finding local services, such as handymen or domestic help. This demographic is also making inroads to meeting people online: 20% say they have met someone who lives in their area online and 28% feel more “at home” in their online community than in their own neighbourhood.

In addition, the vast majority (89%) of survey respondents cited convenience, ease of use and the variety of goods they find online as opposed to more traditional sources like the Yellow Pages as reasons for turning to the Internet for so many of their daily activities.

According to Dr. John Pliniussen, Director, Queen’s Business Consulting, and Associate Professor of eMarketing, Innovation, and Sales, this is the next wave of a powerful social trend for adults and something he expects to become even more mainstream in the very near future.

“In the last six years, Internet use has more than doubled among baby boomers, and this isn’t just to send emails to family and friends or to look at pictures of their children,” says Dr. Pliniussen. “The age-group that I like to call the ‘bandwidth boomers’ are just the tip of an even bigger segment of the population that is turning to the Internet for five main activities: shopping, sharing, caring, earning and learning.”

The percentage of Boomers now using the Net is equal to that of younger demographics (13 45). Boomers constitute just under half the population, and are the wealthiest demographic segment, which presents a huge opportunity for online businesses.

Additional Survey Highlights
Online use

  • Three in four Canadians older than 30 check the Internet at least once a month (73%) for products to buy, services, jobs, or community information, and over half check the Internet once a week or more (54%).
  • 69% of adult Canadians have searched for local services online and 54% view community postings and events online.

Online satisfaction

  • 4 in 5 Canadians older than 30 say their experiences interacting with people online have been positive, including shopping on eBay, participating in blogs or discussion boards or meeting people (83%).
  • Almost 90% say that there is a good variety of goods and/or services online and 86% say it is easy to find what they are looking for online.

Regional Differences

  • British Columbians are the most active, regular users of community websites, as 61% use the Internet once a week or more to search for jobs, products to buy or other local community information.
  • Ontario cites the highest rate of searches for products to buy online, at 40%.
  • Quebeckers have the highest preference for online classifieds, as 43% would choose online classifieds, even if newspaper classified ads were free.
  • Not surprisingly, more than one-third of Albertans look for part-time or temporary jobs online (35%) and one-quarter look for apartments online (25%).

About the Survey
The survey was conducted for Kijiji Canada by Leger Marketing, a Canadian representative of the Gallup International Association, from December 13 18, 2006, with a representative sample of 1,000 Canadians over the age of 30. The survey is considered accurate within +/3.1%, 19 times out of 20.