MONDAY,MARCH9,2020| THEGLOBEANDMAILO ENTREPRENEURSHIP B5
B
usinessesareunderpressure
to make their websites eas-
ier to use for people with vi-
sual impairments, hearing issues
and other disabilities. As of Janu-
ary, 2021, many Ontario business-
es will be required to meet a stan-
dard of accessibility that includes
alternative text for images, con-
trastguidelinesandproperlabell-
ing of content. The Accessibility
forOntarianswithDisabilitiesAct
(AODA) mandates compliance
from organizations with 50 or
more employees in the province,
including full-time, part-time,
seasonal and contract workers.
The standards adopted by On-
tario – Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 2.0 Level AA – were
created by the World Wide Web
Consortium, an international
workinggroupledbywebpioneer
Tim Berners-Lee. Ontario’s law
says those found guilty of an of-
fence under AODA will be fined
$50,000 a day for a person, or
$100,000 a day for a corporation.
“Every director or officer of a
corporation has a duty to take all
reasonable care to prevent the
corporation from committing an
offence,” the law states.
Those fines are provided the
governmentactuallyenforcesthe
legislation,notesJenniferJahnke,
co-ordinator and faculty in Mo-
hawk College’s accessible media
production graduate certificate.
“Therearelotsofstandardsunder
AODA they aren’t fully enforcing,
but they aren’t as public as this
one is.”
She also notes that the way the
law is written is not completely
clear: It states that all content
published since 2012 will have to
be accessible by January, but also
says the rules apply to “new and
significantly refreshed” sites. “It
leaves it open to interpretation,
but a lot of organizations are de-
ciding it’s best to be safe.”
Only Ontario, Manitoba and
NovaScotiahavethoroughacces-
sibility legislation, while British
Columbia is in the process of cre-
ating such laws. Ms. Jahnke notes
that despite not having an over-
arching law, Alberta has many
regulations that take accessibility
into account.
In June, the federal govern-
mentpassedtheAccessibleCana-
da Act, which aims to “create a
barrier-free Canada through the
proactive identification, removal
and prevention of barriers to ac-
cessibility wherever Canadians
interact with areas under federal
jurisdiction.” The act mandates
the development of regulations
that will apply to federally regu-
lated workplaces, such as the
banking, telecommunications
and transportation industries, as
well as the Canadiangovernment
itself.
Avery Swartz, author ofSee You
on the Internet: Building Your Small
Business with Digital Marketing,
says having an accessible website
isnotonlythe“moral”thingtodoto – it’s also good for business. “In
Ontario alone, one in seven peo-
plehasadisability...thatcanim-
pact their ability to participate in
the web. That number is going to
rise as the population continues
to age.
“Why would you want to ex-
clude one in seven people from
being a potential customer or cli-
ent?”
Ms. Swartz says adding accessi-
bility features, such as proper se-
mantic markup – code that de-
scribes the content’s structure –
has the added benefit of improv-
ing a site’s search engine optimi-
zation.
She recommends companies
start by taking a website audit. Is
the code clean, so a voice search
or page-reading tool could easily
distinguish between headers and
body text? Is the contrast high
enough for someone with colour
blindness? Are the buttons large
and easy to find? Sites such as the
Web Accessibility Evaluation
Tool, Snook.ca’s colour contrast
checker and colororacle.org are
good starting points, she says.
Ms. Swartz notes many small
businesses use website builders
such as Wordpress, Squarespace
andShopify,that“givepeoplethe
ability to add the markup that is
required for an accessible web-
site, without having to know
code.”
On the other end of the spec-
trum, “a lot of really, really large
legacy organizations have giant
and extremely complicated web-sites. Those are much harder to
retroactively work on. ... You
mightbethinkingmoreaboutthe
teardown and rebuild as opposed
to the renovation.”
She points out that even after
aninitialretrofit, maintaining ac-
cessibility is continuing work;
anyone charged with adding new
content will have to be trained
and vigilant.
Brandon Aubie, chief execu-
tive of QReserve, a Hamilton-
based software platform that
helps organizations share and
track equipment, says improving
accessibilityhasmadehiscompa-
ny’s product easier to use for ev-
eryone, himself included. “That’s
been the biggest mindset change.
... We look at them more like us-
er-experience guidelines now. It
has become a priority.”
He advises businesses under-
taking this effort to make sure to
test their improvements with ac-
tual users; a process that helped
QReserve find several roadblocks
they wouldn’t have otherwise
identified. He adds that even
though his company is too small
to be affected by the 2021 dead-
line, many of its clients in Canada
andgloballyareinsistingonthese
standards.
“ ‘Are you accessible?’ wasn’t a
question we were asked five years
ago,” he said. “It is becoming
more well-known that it can be
done ... so there is less of an ex-
cuse not to.”SpecialtoTheGlobeandMailBusinessesgetahandleonwebsiteaccessibility
SAIRAPEESKER
InOntarioalone,
oneinsevenpeople
hasadisability...
thatcanimpacttheir
abilitytoparticipate
intheweb.That
numberisgoing
toriseasthe
populationcontinues
toage.Whywould
youwanttoexclude
oneinsevenpeople
frombeinga
potentialcustomer
orclient?AVERYSWARTZ
AUTHOROFSEEYOUON
THEINTERNET:BUILDING
YOURSMALLBUSINESS
WITHDIGITALMARKETINGW
hiteClaw,atrendyboozy
seltzer, has been attract-
ingattentionwiththere-
cent launch of its brand in Cana-
da. It’s been a bit of a homecom-
ing of sorts, given the product,
which has legions of fans in the
United States, was developed by
Vancouver-based beverage brand
Mark Anthony Group of Compa-
nies.
EarlymorningonFeb.29,aline
of eager customers snarled
around the block in sub-zero
temperatures at the Front Street
and Spadina Avenue LCBO in To-
ronto for the chance to be among
the first in Canada to buy a can of
White Claw.
“It shows the extent of the
pent-up demand,” says Anthony
von Mandl, chief executive, foun-
der and sole owner of Mark An-
thony Group. “So many Cana-
dians have been crossing the bor-
der and bringing product back.
Thousands and thousands of
Canadians have been clamouring
and sending us messages about
bringing White Claw to Canada.”
White Claw is not the only al-
coholic seltzer, but it’s one of the
most popular, capturing 60 per
cent of the share of the U.S. mar-
ket. Hard seltzers are akin to
canned vodka soda with a hint of
fruit flavour: the boozy answer to
La Croix.
White Claw is marketed as a
healthier alternative to beer and
sweeter ready-to-drink (RTD)
cocktails – its slim cans promi-
nently announce that the 5-per-
cent alcohol by volume (ABV)
drink is gluten free and has 100
calories. Last summer, the drink
becameaculturalsensation,with
mentions on social-media plat-
forms an average of every 12 sec-
onds – many lamenting the lack
of supply as the company strug-gled to keep up with exploding
demand. White Claw sold 29 mil-
lion cases in the U.S. last year and
the company estimates that it
could have sold much more if it
had been able to produce enough
to meet demand.
Mr. von Mandl got his start as a
wine importer in Vancouver be-
fore hitting it big with Mike’s
Hard Lemonade, the RTD sensa-
tion of the 1990s. In 2015, Mark
AnthonysoldtheCanadianrights
to Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Oka-
nagan Cider and other RTD
brands to Labatt Brewing Co. as
part of a US$350-million deal, but
retained ownership in the U.S.
market. Today, Mr. von Mandl’s
company is perhaps best known
in Canada as the owner of high-
end Okanagan wineries such as
Mission Hill Family Estate.
White Claw was developed at
Mark Anthony’s innovation cen-
tre in Ireland and launched in the
U.S. due to the company’s strongdistribution network for RTD
products there, but its roots are
clearly Canadian. Many food and
beverage companies buy from
large flavour labs, but Mark An-
thony produces all its own fla-
vours in Canada, including the
all-natural black cherry and cold-
pressed citrus that define the
White Claw brand.
But Canadian White Claw is
different than its American coun-
terpart – in the U.S., the alcohol
comes from a fermented sugar
base while in Canada, the drink
starts with corn that is distilled
five times. In the U.S., drinks
made with fermented alcohol are
regulated like beer, while those
with distilled spirits face stronger
controls on packaging and point
of sale. Canadian laws are gener-
allyindifferenttothetypeofalco-
hol, focusing instead on the ABV.
The company claims the taste is
indistinguishable, and since the
distilled spirit version is easier to
produce,they’reabletousethird-
party plants in Toronto and Cal-
gary to supply the Canadian mar-
ket rather than waiting for their
two new plants in New Jersey and
Arizona to be completed in the
coming months.
The dramatic growth of White
Claw – sales of 12 million cases in
2018 grew to 29 million last year –
draws from all ages and types of
drinkers. Gen Z and millennial
drinkers are a core demographic,
as more than half of White Claw’s
American customers are between
the ages of 21 and 34, and 53 per
cent are men. Beer used to be the
default beverage for this group asthey entered legal drinking age,
but today the social pressure to
drink beer has relaxed.
U.S. sales of hard seltzer more
than doubled in 2019 to top US$1-
billion. With such growth, it’s no
surprise that White Claw is set to
face some stiff competition as all
the major beer brands are
launching their own hard seltz-
ers. AB InBev SA/NV, for in-
stance, spent millions of dollars
on Super Bowl ads this year to
push both its Bon & Viv Spiked
Seltzer and a new line of Bud
Light Seltzers. Boston Beer Co.-
backed Truly, which is also avail-
able in Canada and has a 25-per-
cent market share in the U.S., has
been the largest competitor and
is growing quickly.
“Perfect time, perfect place,”
says Andreas Schotter, an associ-
ate professor of general manage-
ment and international business
attheUniversityofWesternOnta-
rio’s Ivey Business School, of
White Claw’s rise. Prof. Schotter
said in addition to the declining
popularityofbeer,thereisalsoan
increased trend for experimenta-
tionanddesireforhealthierprod-
ucts among younger consumers
that fits with White Claw’s array
of flavour options and low sugar
and calorie levels as compared
with beer and standard ready-to-
drink options. “There’s been a
shiftintheconsumermarketthat
allows companies like them to
enter, but it remains to be seen if
it’s sustainable,” Prof. Schotter
says.SpecialtoTheGlobeandMailWhiteClaw,developedbyVancouver-basedbeveragebrandMarkAnthonyGroupofCompanies,hascaptured60percentofthealcoholic-seltzermarketintheUnitedStates.Thedrinkis
marketedasahealthieroptiontobeerandsweeterready-to-drinkcocktails.EachWhiteClawis100caloriesandglutenfree.TIMOTHYA.CLARY/AFP/GETTYIMAGES
Boozyseltzerbrand
makesasplashwith
Canadianhomecoming
Havingseensoaringsuccesssouthoftheborder,WhiteClawaimsfor
repeatperformanceindominatingready-to-drinkalcoholicbeveragemarket
CHARLIEFRIEDMANN