We invited someone new to Canadian Viewpoint to learn about us and our services. Z Johnson reflects on the key to Canadian Viewpoint’s success after 45 years.
Here’s something you don’t see much in market research anymore: a company that’s been around for 45 years and is still going strong. Canadian Viewpoint Inc. (CVI) isn’t just surviving; they’re thriving by doing something surprisingly rare in this industry – they actually do everything.
And when we say everything, we mean it. Fortune 500 companies work with them. So do boutique research firms. Some clients have been with them for over 4 decades, which tells you something about how they operate.
In a world where most research providers have carved out tiny niches and specialized themselves into corners, CVI took the opposite approach. They’ve built a business around versatility, offering end-to-end research solutions that bend to fit whatever you need. Let’s dig into why that matters and what they’re actually bringing to the table.
The “We Can Handle That” Advantage
Here’s the thing about modern market research: timelines are tight, budgets are tighter, and the questions you’re trying to answer keep getting more complex. CVI’s services help researchers work within this reality. Their people add to the services, with experience rooted in research. This gives them versatility, leading to strong relationships that regularly result in delighted customers who regularly call out their problem-solving partnership, speed, and consistently going the extra mile.
Need a quick 5-question pulse check fielded in 48-72 hours? They’ve got you covered. Want a sophisticated, multi-modal study that weaves together web surveys, phone interviews, and in-person qual, all running simultaneously? Yeah, they can do that too.
This isn’t just about checking boxes on a capabilities list. It’s a fundamental business advantage. Instead of juggling three different vendors who all use different platforms, you’ve got one partner who handles everything. That means less time herding cats and more time actually doing research.
OmniUber: When You Need Answers Yesterday
Sometimes you just need fast, reliable data without jumping through hoops. That’s where OmniUber comes in.
Here’s how it works: field 5 questions to your target audience (age, gender, and region get added for free). Pick your sample size: 500, 1000, or 1500 responses. Get clean, analysis-ready data back in 48-72 hours.
But here’s what makes OmniUber different from other quick-turn platforms: your study stays completely separate, and it’s ready to go when you are. Some services combine multiple small studies together to save money, which means your data might be sitting in a survey next to someone else’s completely unrelated questions. Not ideal for data quality. Definitely not ideal for confidentiality.
With OmniUber, your research questions stay yours, your data integrity stays intact, and you get the speed you need without the usual trade-offs. If you’re working on agile timelines or want to test concepts before committing to a bigger study, this is exactly what that looks like.
Panels: The Foundation of Everything
Want to know the secret to CVI’s consistently high-quality data? It starts way before anyone ever sees a survey link.
Canadian Viewpoint runs one of Canada’s largest proprietary consumer panels (SurveyLion) with participants recruited through online and offline channels. But here’s the interesting part: they validate panel members using mailed cheques.
Yes, actual physical cheques.
It sounds old-school, because it is old-school. But in an era where bots and fraud are getting more sophisticated by the day, there’s something beautifully effective about this approach. If someone can cash a cheque at a Canadian address, you know they’re a real human who actually lives there. Not the flashiest technology, but remarkably effective at solving the “is this person real” problem from the ground up.
And because CVI actively manages this panel instead of just aggregating third-party sample sources, they get high response rates and consistently strong data quality. The panel is fully PIPEDA compliant, meeting Canada’s strict data protection requirements. And they can do sophisticated geographic sampling throughout Canada, including proximity targeting based on distance from specific locations.
Want to understand how people living within 10 kilometers of your store perceive your brand compared to competitors? CVI can sample that precisely.
Beyond the consumer panel, they maintain a specialized medical panel of over 10,000 healthcare professionals (pharmacists, dentists, dental hygienists, and other medical practitioners) available for online or phone surveys. If you’ve ever tried to get healthcare professionals for a market research study, you know exactly how valuable this is.
Survey Programming: Making Complex Look Easy
With over 30 years of questionnaire programming experience, the CVI team has pretty much seen it all. Conjoint analysis? Maxdiff exercises? Advanced quota management? They handle the complex with the same ease as straightforward questionnaires.
They’ve also built some genuinely useful innovations into their surveys. Moment-to-Moment Touch replaces those clunky sliders or keypads for capturing real-time emotional reactions to videos. Need to know where participants are looking when they review a website or app mockup? They’ve got eye tracking that embeds right into surveys and generates heatmaps. There’s also facial coding to capture emotional reactions.
Every study kicks off with a call where you explain your objectives. They ask clarifying questions about methodology and logic, and together you iron out the details that prevent confusion and endless back-and-forth during programming. This upfront investment in understanding saves time (and headaches) throughout the project and results in fewer revisions.
It’s the kind of thing that seems obvious until you’ve worked with vendors who skip this step and then act surprised when the survey doesn’t match what you actually needed.
CATI: Turns Out Humans Still Matter
CVI operates a 60-person virtual call center staffed with bilingual interviewers fluent in English and French. These aren’t just people reading scripts; they’re experienced researchers with backgrounds spanning consumer research, B2B studies, and medical research.
You might be wondering why we’re talking about call centers in the age of AI chatbots and automated everything. Fair question. Here’s why it matters: some audiences just don’t respond well to digital-only approaches.
Older adults, busy professionals, specialized B2B audiences; they often respond better to phone outreach than email invitations. Having CATI capabilities means you can actually reach these people instead of just hoping they’ll click a survey link.
But it’s more than that. CATI enables hybrid methodologies that combine the best of multiple approaches. Use phone interviewers to recruit hard-to-reach participants for web surveys, boosting response rates among audiences that ignore email. Or add qualitative depth to quantitative studies by conducting follow-up phone interviews with survey respondents.
This flexibility to move between methodologies based on research needs rather than vendor limitations? That’s a strategic advantage in study design.
Qualitative Solutions: Way Beyond Focus Groups
CVI’s expertise extends well beyond quantitative work. They offer a comprehensive suite of qualitative solutions that bring research to life in ways that data tables just can’t.
Of course, they handle recruitment, discussion guide design, and moderation for focus groups and in-depth interviews in English and French, with modern facilities for in-person sessions. But their qualitative capabilities go way beyond the traditional stuff.
Intercepts: Research in the Wild
CVI’s physical facilities support mall intercepts and other in-person recruitment for observational shopping studies. Shop-alongs let trained researchers observe (actively or passively) as shoppers navigate stores. You get insights into decision-making processes that surveys alone miss. Shelf tests let participants view actual store shelving configurations, giving you real-time reactions to product placement, packaging design, and merchandising strategies.
These intercept capabilities also support recruitment for sensory testing (research that engages any of the five senses). Testing a new food product and want comprehensive feedback on aroma, texture, appearance, and taste? CVI can recruit participants and provide access to specialized facilities in Toronto and Montreal, plus facilities in most Canadian metro areas and U.S. locations.
Remember those tools CVI uses in survey programming (Moment-to-Moment Touch, eye tracking, facial coding)? You can use those in person too! This adds quantitative data to deep qualitative insights, giving you the best of both worlds in a single study. You can get heatmaps after interviews and take advantage of neuro testing, capturing emotional and physiological responses that go far beyond what traditional questions can reveal.
CVI can even support cannabis sensory testing in their facilities, serving the growing legal cannabis industry’s research needs.
Mystery Shopping: Your Brand Through Customers’ Eyes
Sometimes you need authentic, unannounced evaluations of customer experience. And here, like everything else, CVI’s mystery shopping program delivers. They deploy trained evaluators who follow detailed scripts and protocols to assess service quality, compliance with brand standards, and customer experience elements that only undercover evaluation can capture.
Their mystery shoppers have evaluated everything from fast food service and retail experiences to cell phone store interactions and even complex major appliance delivery processes. The result? Actionable feedback on frontline performance that you can’t get any other way.
In-Home Usage Testing: Real Products, Real Homes, Real Insights
Need to understand how consumers actually use your product in their natural environment? CVI handles the complete logistics of in-home usage testing (product labeling, shipping, tracking, and data collection throughout the usage period).
For products too valuable, risky, or sensitive to mail, CVI can coordinate tests in their Toronto or Montreal facilities (or other metro areas across Canada and the U.S.), or arrange centralized pick-up locations.
Quali-Quant EyeHome™: Innovation Meets Affordability
To help researchers access in-home insights (think ethnographies) without traditional in-home visit costs, Canadian Viewpoint developed Quali-Quant EyeHome™, a proprietary webcam solution that works seamlessly with online study platforms.
This technology visually captures open-ended responses, letting researchers see and hear participants react in their natural environment. You get the spontaneity and authenticity of in-home research while eliminating travel costs, scheduling complexities, and geographic limitations. Researchers still get rich, contextualized data, just more efficiently and affordably.
45 Years Strong for a Reason
What makes Canadian Viewpoint Inc. such an enduring force in market research?
Beyond their exceptional breadth of service offerings, they employ passionate, experienced researchers who constantly seek new ways to support customers and innovate solutions, all while protecting the data quality that’s defined their reputation for nearly half a century.
CVI doesn’t just execute research. They partner with clients to solve business problems. This commitment to quality, communication, flexibility, and value has made them indispensable for 45 years and positions them to remain Canada’s indispensable market research partner for the next 45.
