Bachelor of Commerce (Digital Marketing) - Postsecondary ...

13. Economic Need
Fanshawe College contracted with the independent research firm Academica Group Inc. to help
determine, in part, the economic need for the proposed Bachelor of Commerce programs before
pursuing this application. Academica conducted secondary and primary research. The research report is
attached as Appendix A.
The digital marketing field is relatively new, in comparison to traditional marketing and marketing
management fields. There is a great amount of reliable market research data available demonstrating
that digital marketing, although not much more than a decade old, has quickly become the predominant
force in marketing today, especially in Canada. Internet‐based advertising volume, for example,
captured only 1.2% of Canada’s advertising dollar in 2001, compared to 19.5% in 2010. Internet
advertising volume has eclipsed newspaper advertising, which fell from 36% to 18% in the same period.
Only television advertising volume is still larger than internet‐based advertising, at 29.6% of the
advertising dollar, but has lost market share each year since 2003 (Media Digest 2011/12, page 15).
Mobile advertising, a fairly recent form of digital marketing, has grown from $1.1 million in Canadian
revenue in 2006 to $52.1 million in 2010, an increase of 93% over the 2009 revenues. For 2011, mobile
advertising revenues were forecast to grow by an additional 57% to $82 million.
For the foreseeable future, digital marketing will continue to build steam at the expense of more
traditional marketing methods. The digital marketing industry is exceptionally vibrant, and the demand
for people who understand the industry is almost insatiable now.
13.1 Labour Market Needs for Digital Marketing Occupations
The digital marketing landscape is changing very quickly and the technical and management skills
needed for many forms of digital marketing are quite different from the skills used by traditional
marketers.
Labour market data collection has not kept up very well in this rapidly changing marketplace. According
to the Ontario Job Futures website, occupations in sales, marketing and advertising managers (NOC 061)
are expected to have average employment prospects over the period from 2009 to 2013. With over
72,000 Ontarians working in this occupational category, however, there will continue to be strong
replacement demand due to retirements (Appendix A, p. 188). This macro labour market data, however,
does not account for the rapid shift within this occupation category, from traditional to digital marketing
occupations. This revolutionary shift will continue to place significant demand pressure on digital
marketing specialist positions.
In the Academica interview of employers, most employers indicated significant shortages for the
positions of digital marketing analyst, search engine marketing specialist, and search engine
optimization specialist. Slightly fewer (80%) indicated shortages for digital marketing specialist. Several
other digital marketing positions were also offered as having current shortages, including conversion
optimization, web analytics, social media specialist, and mobile specialist (Appendix A, p. 190). The
majority of employers further predicted that little progress would be made to address the labour market
gaps, and felt the most significant needs would be in web‐related specializations (Appendix A, p. 191).
Bachelor of Commerce (Digital Marketing) 137