Due to the recent global economic crisis, the Turkish advertising market has seen a significant downturn in the past two years. In 2007 total ad spending stood at TL 3.3 billion, whereas last year advertising expenditures had decreased to TL 2.7 billion. Still, Ahmet Pura, chairman of the Advertisers Association of Turkey (RVD), is confident that this year the sector will be able to reverse the negative trend and realize considerable growth. “The first quarter of this year makes us optimistic, so we expect advertising spending to grow by 15 percent compared to 2009, totaling around TL 3.2 billion,” Pura said.
The RVD expects digital media advertising in particular to gain ground on more traditional marketing tools. “There is a global shift toward more advertising and marketing on digital platforms. In Turkey, there are 36 million Internet subscribers and 18 million members on the social networking site Facebook -- making it the third largest user group in the world -- so the Turkish consumer is very open toward this change. That’s why we think that Turkey will be one of the first countries to make this shift,” RVD Vice Chairman Hakan Turalı said.
Pura stressed the importance of a centralized and reliable audience measurement system in order to realize the full potential of new media, stating that “measuring the impact of digital media advertising is very important, as no advertiser will spend money on something that he can’t measure.”
