5th Turkish Brand Summit Held at Bilkent
This past weekend, the fifth "Marka Zirvesi," or Brand Summit, took place at Bilkent. An annual marketing symposium organized by the Brand Club, this year's summit was held on December 1-2. An audience of over 200 invited attendees, from Bilkent as well as other universities including Boğaziçi, Hacettepe, İstanbul, METU, Anadolu, Melikşah and Ankara, filled Mithat Çoruh Auditorium to hear talks by a stellar group of speakers, a number of them names behind the creation of well-known brands.
Vice Rector Prof. Kürşat Aydoğan delivered the opening remarks. He noted that the Brand Club has created its own brand in only five years. Referring to Bilkent as a brand, given its position in various rankings, Prof. Aydoğan outlined the universally accepted criteria that lead to an academic institution being considered a successful one. In addition, he offered suggestions to students about how to stand out from others after graduation.
Following this, Bilkent instructor Dr. Elif Özdilek presented her insights regarding the definition of a brand, stating that it is an image that we like and even love, and do not relinquish.
Ömer Ekinci, CEO of Desnet and young entrepreneur of the year in 2009, shared his experiences at various stages of his career. The theme of the presentation was "how a paper plane flies over the ocean," and Mr. Ekinci concluded by observing that each of us is a "white paper": we can fly only if we are shaped in the right way. He also referred to the often-quoted saying: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
İbrahim Doğan, marketing manager for AnadoluJet, brought his own perspective to the matter. He talked about his career and also made some recommendations to students. One of most important was, "Keep a career notebook and, allocating just one hour a week, continue to write down new information about the job you most want to do. After three years, you'll see how much information you have about this occupation." In addition, Mr. Doğan gave two free airline tickets to students who asked the most incisive questions. One of these came from Fatih Buldum (IE/IV), who asked: "What will be your strategy if low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and EasyJet enter the Turkish market? We know they can't enter now because we're not in the European Union. But what will happen if we join the EU?"
Among the summit's many other noteworthy presentations offering insight into the definition of a "brand" were those of Barış Karakullukçu, general manager of Mudo; Engin Tuncer, board member of Eyüp Sabri Tuncer; Mine Mavi, Unilever Calve Sana Becel brand manager; Feridun Tunçözgür, Teknosa's sales manager for Turkey; Coşkun Aral, photographer; and Amaç Ukav, advertising executive and owner of SV Studios.
By Meltem Çelikkaya (MAN/IV)