Lunch at Tim’s. Urban Digerati. Rooms With a View.
These are just some of the 68 neighbourhood profiles generated by a unique data analytics tool developed by Environics. Aptly called ‘Lifestyle Lookup’, it assesses every community in Canada based on a variety of factors and generates a snapshot of the people who live there.
A search for M5V 3A6 (The Beaches, Toronto) returned this summary:
Street Scenes; Located on the fringes of the downtown core…attracts younger singles…well-kept streets, aging houses…white collar jobs…active leisure lives…spending power appears higher because so many households are childless…high rates for going to bars, nightclubs, art galleries, music and film festivals…they support the Pursuit of Originality.
Spot on.
The 68 profiles are determined based on a household’s age, ethnicity, education, and net worth, and are applied to around 750,000 postal codes nationwide. Some conclusions are a bit of a stretch, but their claim that where you live says a huge amount about who you are, how you think and what you do is certainly interesting.
A few notable takeaways from the analysis:
– Ottawa is Canada’s most “diverse” city, with 53 neighbourhood profiles represented. Saguenay, Quebec, on the other hand, is the least diverse.
– The profiles are very reflective of Canada’s demographic shifts, including the rise of the millenial generation, aging of baby boomers, and influx of immigrants. ‘South Asian Society’, for example, describes several neighbourhoods in Toronto and Vancouver predominantly made up of middle-aged, middle income Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims who work to further their children’s education.
It’s a fun tool to play around with on the surface, but these findings can determine everything from whether or not it makes sense to open a yoga studio on your block or why Starbucks just opened instead of a Second Cup.
Welcome to marketing in the age of big data.
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