Key insights:

  • Visa leads with a +5.8-point Ad Awareness rise, driven by its Toronto International Film Festival partnership.
  • Apple gains +5.5 points following the iPhone 17 and Apple Watch X launches.
  • BMO climbs +5.4 points after promoting its new Escape Credit Card with travel-reward perks.

September’s Canada Advertisers of the Month are Visa, Apple, and BMO Bank of Montreal, each showing strong increases in Ad Awareness as measured by YouGov BrandIndex. Ad Awareness measures the percentage of consumers who have seen an advertisement for a brand in the past two weeks.

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Visa recorded a rise in Ad Awareness from 14.6 % on August 29 to 20.4 % on September 24, an increase of 5.8 percentage points. On September 4, 2025, Visa Canada announced its continued partnership with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), marking 28 years of collaboration. As part of the campaign, Visa introduced exclusive new experiences for cardholders during the festival.

Apple registered an increase in Ad Awareness from 16.4 % on September 5 to 21.8 % on September 25, a gain of 5.5 percentage points.
The increase aligns with Apple’s product launch event on September 9, 2025, where it introduced the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Air, Apple Watch X, Apple Watch SE 3, and AirPods Pro 3.

BMO rose from 20.4 % on September 16 to 25.8 % on September 29, a gain of 5.4 percentage points. In August 2025, BMO launched the Escape Credit Card (in partnership with Mastercard), a travel-rewards card offering perks like no foreign transaction fees, up to $240 in hotel statement credits, Priority Pass lounge access, and accelerated points on dining, airfare, hotels, and travel spending.

Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. Ad Awareness is based on asking: “Which of the following consumer brands have you seen an advertisement for in the past two weeks?” The data reflects a four-week moving average covering the period from August 26 to September 25, 2025, among Canadian adults aged 18+. The change is calculated as the difference between the lowest and highest scores within that window.