All there in black and white

x Sponsored content on Research Live and in Impact magazine is editorially independent.
Find out more about advertising and sponsorship.

In Turkey, political considerations are feeding into economic factors to influence purchasing decisions and social interactions.

The country’s ‘Black Turks’ – predominantly working class, less urbanised and often more pious – are drawn to home-grown brands. On the other hand, ‘White Turks’ – middle-class, more open to international influences and generally more secular – are attracted instead to western goods and services.

While some of this is to do with the regular economics of a developing market, with consumers gravitating to what they perceive to be higher-quality western brands as they grow more affluent, choice has become more and more politicised since the ruling AKP party came to power in 2002.

Black Turk purchase preferences now tend to favour Turkish companies, which have prospered because of their relationships with the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. However, White Turks are actively eschewing those same brands and turning to rival firms to express political defiance through their retail choices.

Not that any of these brands necessarily have overt political links. Rather, it’s that their owners’ stances towards the government – along with either their religious affiliations or secularism – give consumers the right pointers, driving their behaviours.

Turkish observers have remarked that companies close to the government have done extremely well in the past 14 years, thanks to state deals and favourable regulations, while those without friends in high places may have suffered. Those connected brands are the ones favoured by Black Turks, but they are then avoided by their White counterparts.

The opposing terms were coined by journalist Ufuk Güldemir in his 1992 book Teksas Malatya, and subsequently popularised by Turkish columnists and political scientists who used them to denote Turkish social groups. While it is regarded as derogatory to call someone a Black Turk or White Turk to their face – and the terminology is not really part of common discourse – people are fully aware of the language’s connotations.

But how does the distinction actually play out for brands on the streets? The Black choice of beverage, for example, would be food brand Ülker’s Cola Turka, launched in 2003, while Whites would more likely opt for Coca-Cola, knowingly and actively shunning the purchase of a can of Cola Turka. And, in terms of retail destinations, the more traditional Turkish shopper would head to market-leading discount grocer BIM, while a Western-leaning consumer would more likely look to visit stores operated by French supermarket chain Carrefour.

Part of this is down to economics, of course. In recent research in the fuel market, Thinktank found strong preferences for what middle-class consumers saw as premium Western fuels, though they looked down on home-grown petrol station brands as being territory for the less affluent.

However, Turkey’s shopping mall boom, part of the rash of construction projects across the country linked to increased suburbanisation, is also providing a stage for the Black/White consumer schism. There are some 370 shopping malls across the country, with just under one-third of these located in and around fast-growing Istanbul, and they do manage to attract shoppers from across the spectrum. But, while White Turks will head to the malls to shop, eat and watch films in their cinemas, Black Turks will most probably go there to meet others rather than engage in any heavy retail activity.

“I’ve noticed that people from rural areas come to shopping malls to socialise, and one reason for that is there’s no alcohol served there,” notes Erdogan Gundogdu, director of Eksen Research in Istanbul. “And Istanbul, in particular, is terrible in terms of offering public or green spaces. Therefore, much of the population is left with the malls for social activity.”

But while Black Turks may congregate in the shopping malls, some localities can be no-go areas. The area surrounding Taksim Square holds no attraction, largely because it’s a White Turk hangout where alcohol is readily available.

So Black and White Turks don’t mix and have a somewhat confrontational relationship, something that naturally needs to be factored into market research projects conducted in Turkey – from moderator choice through to sampling, interpreting responses and marketing campaigns.

“In the past, people used to hide their religious beliefs. Now they go out of their way to show just where they stand,” says Gundogdu. “Male moderators talking to females was never an issue, but now we feel we have to ask respondents if they’re happy speaking to another gender.”

In one recent project Thinktank conducted in Turkey, young working-class males reacted disapprovingly to what they saw as women being pictured in provocative poses. Their urban, middle-class counterparts did not bat an eyelid.

This means that as foreign agencies working in Turkey we must be sensitive to the divisions in Turkish society – for example, avoiding qualitative sample designs that inadvertently mix Black and White Turks in groups.

Sabine Stork is founding partner at Thinktank International Research