Marketing at Statistics Canada

Abstract

Ensuring that statistical offices are fundamentally service organizations requires a concerted and organized marketing effort. At Statistics Canada, new marketing initiatives have been the driving force behind major changes to the Agency's corporate culture, product line and business management approach. The marketing approach used determines market needs, develops suitable products, and then disseminates and promotes those products.

This paper first outlines how Statistics Canada determines client needs through the use of advisory committees, market feedback and program evaluations. It then explains the Agency's major product line redevelopment initiatives and its policy of balancing the costs of production (excluding data collection and processing) with earned revenues. The paper discusses how the Agency maintains its service to the public by making information available as a public good as well as its shift to more user-funded surveys and studies. The paper concludes with an analysis of how the new marketing policy has helped to maintain the integrity of Canada's statistical system in an era of budget reductions.