This is why you should attend Istanbul Marketing Summit
One of the summits I have been impatiently waiting for throughout the year 2019 was the Istanbul Marketing Summit organized by Batuhan Çevik. Before I go into the details of the biggest Marketing Summit of Turkey, I want to introduce you to the guy who is behind this summit.
Batuhan Çevik, graduate of Management Engineer from Bahcesehir University, started organizing events while he was a university student. The first event he organized which started at university and went to the biggest hall in Istanbul, Zorlu PSM Center, was the TEDxBahcesehirUniversity. He has been organizing TEDx events since 2014. Later in January 2018, Batuhan opened an event agency called ‘Home of Dreamers‘, where they give services in areas such as speaker curation, event management, event marketing, festivals and etc. In the same year he organized his first Istanbul Marketing Summit at Zorlu PSM Center.
After attending the first Istanbul Marketing Summit and listening to great speakers from different fields, I knew that next year I would definitely find myself attending the summit once again. Yes, definitely no surprise that this year once again I attended the biggest Marketing Summit of Turkey and got the chance to listen and learn from industry leaders.
This years summit lasted for two days — December 9–10 — with local and foreign speakers. Here is a list of some of the speakers from the summit:
- Mikhail Vysokovskiy (Director at Yandex, Navigation Product)
- Ahmet Yağlıcıoğlu (Director at DeFacto, Global Marketing)
- Andre Le Masurier (Chieft Creative Officer at R/GA EMEA
- Hazal Çetin (Marketing and Growth Director, AdColony)
- Joan Calabia (Brand and Marketing Director of Dockers, Europe)
- Pelin Şeker (Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications, FLO)
While some brands decided to grow their brand awareness through social impact, others changed and adapted their marketing strategies to the youth. For example, some brands chose to work with celebrities and targeted the youth with Rap Music. Another one decided to use their power and help the community every time someone would buy a shoe lace. Dockers, changed their marketing strategy and decided to go against the traditional social norms of wearing a suit to be taken ‘serious’. Joan Calabia explained that with their campaign they were trying to show the conflict between traditional and modern lifestyle. In their 60 seconds commercial, a young entrepreneur is wrestling with a suit. With this, Dockers, tries to send a message to the world that “the world is full of opportunities if you have that ‘entrepreneurial’ mindset, while the suit represents the establishment.”
The best part of the Istanbul Marketing Summit is that it starts in the morning and goes till evening with coffee and lunch break in between, which gives us the chance to network with other people from different industries. During the break you can also approach the booths, find out about job opportunities or new projects and receive bunch of FREE giveaways!
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After the summit I thought and reflected on the previous year’s summit as well as this year’s and I realized how much of work has been put in this year especially to organize full 2 day event! This year we also got to listen to foreign speakers which added very different and interesting perspective to the traditional Marketing Strategies I knew off. Mix of different Marketing styles gave me the freedom to reflect and see new ways in marketing and growth of a brand.
After the summit I also got the chance to ask couple questions to Batuhan Çevik about Istanbul Marketing Summit. Let’s hear what he has to say about the summit.
Why did you decide to make Marketing Summit in Istanbul? Is there anything that got you motivated for it?
There was a need for a platform for brands to tell their stories and share their best experiences, and for brand managers to have a say in the world. The Istanbul Marketing Summit was born out of this need and for the past two year it has been bringing together the exciting ideas of the marketing and communication world.
What kind of feedback did you receive from speakers and the audience? Do you plan to continue organizing Marketing Summit next year as well?
Absolutely! We already started working for 2020. We received very positive feedback from the attendees. I think that our aim on explaining storytelling is well understood by the participants. We were also happy to receive positive feedback from the speakers. We also hosted the speakers from abroad in the best way possible in Istanbul. Shangri-La Bosphorus Hotel sponsored their accommodation and their flight to Istanbul along with all the restaurants they visit were all planned ahead of time.
Of course no event happens with ease. Everything has its own difficulties and challenges that the team has to face. What’s more important is to stay strong, patient and continue working towards the best.
What is the most challenging part about organizing a Marketing Summit and how do you overcome it?
I believe that the good idea can be presented in a short time. One of the most challenging points is to be able to keep the conversations within 20 minutes. In order to overcome this, we worked with each speaker personally and prepared their speeches together.
Anything you would like to add about Marketing Summit?
I sincerely believe that Istanbul Marketing Summit will be one of the important and valuable events of this region. There are some great events in the world, such as SXSW and OMR, and what they do right is not only to add value to the event, but also to create value for their city. Our aim is to add value to our city by increasing the number of foreign participants who will attend the Istanbul Marketing Summit. We will continue to work hard towards our goal.
I have no doubt that Istanbul Marketing Summit will be one of the biggest and most valuable summits happening in this region. With the addition of foreign speakers, there was a greater increase in foreign attendance. Personally, I had the joy of listening to both local and foreign marketers, which allowed me to learn different approaches in marketing from different cultures. We need this mix, we need this information in order to develop and to create better Marketing results for the brands.
Once again I want to thank Batuhan and his team for working so hard to put together such a valuable, fun and interactive Marketing Summit in Istanbul. I am really looking forward to Istanbul Marketing Summit 2020 and so should you! We have a lot to learn from industry experts!
