ANKARA: Turkey is set to break a new record in terms of exports, the head of the country’s exporters assembly has said, noting that the export industry has now begun displaying a positive trend following the upheaval after the July 2016 coup attempt.
“Although we are aiming at reaching a volume of $155 billion, we could break a new record if we were to go higher than $157 billion,” Turkish Exporters Assembly (TİM) head Mehmet Büyükekşi said. Tell us about your new campaign. Following the July 15 [2016] coup attempt, a negative perception operation started abroad. Some $560 billion has been spent each year on communications. No matter how much we spend, it would never have been enough compared to this amount. So we decided to do something different. We said to ourselves, “Let’s not do the explaining ourselves, let our friends talk about us.” A recommendation is much better than a communication campaign or a commercial. The impact of a recommendation from prominent personalities known by the public is much higher than the impact of a commercial.
Some of the CEOs of international companies active in Turkey live in the country. We worked with them as well as with people like the CEOs of Ford, Cyberbank, BNP Paribas and the deputy head of GE. We approached 16 CEOs of companies that ranged from Toyota to Unilever. They all accepted it. We allowed them to say whatever they wanted to about Turkey. We told them, “Say it however you want to say it.” We shot 30 seconds advertorials with each, and we only asked them to use the same sentence at the end: “Come to Turkey, Discover your own story!”
The campaign started at the end of March in seven countries: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. We are half-way through. We have not targeted the people in the street but the business community and the decision makers. We will soon have the CEOs of Nasdaq and Yandex online. We have also done shots with football players Lukas Podolski, Wesley Sneijder and Samuel Eto’o. Our aim was to improve the perception of Turkey as well as improve the perception of Turkish products. This is also part of our efforts at branding. We want to create a Turkey brand, a regional brand, a city brand and sector brands. By 2013, we are aiming to have 10 brands known all over the world.
