IAB Canada’s 2025 Winning Holiday Advertising Check List 

IAB Canada just wrapped up the Holiday Advertising Skills Lab in Toronto last week. Some incredible insights surfaced to give planners an edge this season. The following highlights from “Win the Season” stood out as imperatives. 

Think Season, Not Weekend 

Canada’s holiday season is bigger than a single weekend. Canadians start buying earlier, often one to three months in advance of key holidays. It stretches across cultural moments and into the “Q5” weeks after New Year, when audiences are still scrolling, streaming, and shopping. Post-holiday attention remains strong, and media costs often soften in Q5, which makes late-season performance more efficient.

Start early, be there when shopping choices are made, reflect Canada’s diversity with care, and prove the incremental lift. 

Try this: map your calendar from Diwali to Boxing Day, then reserve a Q5 budget line for retargeting, replenishment, and always-on brand. 

Meet Shoppers Where They Decide: Online and In-store 

Physical retail still carries the load. About 84% of retail sales occur in stores and 64% of shoppers prefer discovering gifts in-store. A holiday vibe through seasonal music correlates with longer dwell time and higher spend.  

Try this: pair retail media with in-store audio to catch shoppers at the point of decision. Keep messages clear, upbeat, and time-relevant.  

The Biggest Screen in The House for Scale and Proof 

TV time in Canada is rising. Streaming is up about 10% year over year, and more than half of streaming time is ad-supported. As families gather around the living room, streaming viewership jumps +19% during Christmas week and remains elevated into early January, creating opportunities for efficient reach and measurable outcomes.  

Try this: combine premium CTV placements with complementary formats and instrument measurement from day one with pixels, lift studies, and post-campaign reporting.  

Design for Canada’s Diversity 

Today one in four Canadians identifies as a visible minority, trending toward ~40% by 2040. Authentic creative earns trust; token inclusion damages it.  

Try this: expand your moments beyond December, co-create with community voices, and sanity-check product and context for cultural alignment.  

Measure Incrementality, Not Just Impressions 

Optimize for new audiences, not duplicated reach. Adding video or streaming to a display-first plan can lift incremental reach by +48% and raise purchase rate 6.6× in examples shared. Define channel-specific KPIs and bake reporting into the plan.  

Try this: for CTV, focus on household reach and completion rate; for retail audio, watch in-store traffic and sales lift. 

Holiday Checklist  

  • Timeline: lock the cultural calendar, start brand activity early in Q4, and earmark Q5 for efficient follow-through.  
  • Channel mix: blend CTV, retail media, and in-store audio so discovery connects to point-of-sale moments.  
  • Creative: keep it clear, regionally aware, and culturally authentic.  
  • Proof: plan for lift studies, pixels, and post-campaign reporting from kickoff.  
Download the Checklist


Winning the season in Canada means respecting the full arc of the holidays, showing up where people decide, and earning trust with work that measures up.  

Missed our Skills Lab? Be sure to join the next one for the richest takeaways that can only be brought to you by the thought leadership from IAB Canada’s community. This amazing learning environment allows you to ask questions big or small and offers a chance to pressure-test ideas for your next campaign. Stay tuned for our next Skills Lab announcement—we’d love to see you there. 

We’d like to thank our speakers for Skills Lab: Win the Season – Holiday Edition: