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PIONEER WOMEN IN TURKISH ADVERTISING
Ayşe BİNAY KURULTAY *
Burcu PEKSEVGEN **
There are many resources on advertising as it is one of the most intriguing businesses. However,
resources on women’s role in advertising history are scarce. As it is difficult to find reliable texts on
women advertisers in the world, it would be optimistic to expect to find such sources on Turkish
advertising history. Advertising history in Turkey is hardly documented which makes it difficult to
determine the state of women in Turkish advertising. The lack of documentation in advertising
history comes forward as the main reason for developing and conducting this investigation. This
study aims to understand the meaning of being a woman advertiser in the Turkish advertising
industry based on the experiences of the pioneering women in the advertising agencies. The research
questions include understanding “the woman’s perspective” if there is one in this creative industry.
Identifying how creativity and the business of advertising are perceived by women pioneers was
explored as well.
In‐depth interviews were conducted over 2 months (March‐April 2014) with 12 informants with
more than 15 years of experience in the Turkish advertising industry. The interviews lasted between
1.5‐2 hours each. ∗ Standardized open‐ended questions were asked to each informant and follow‐up
questions were used to probe deeper into various topics. E‐mail correspondence was used with 3
informants since they reside out of the city. Snowball sampling was used as the researchers gathered
names of potential informants from each interviewed informant. Snowball sampling utilizes an
informant as a source for locating other persons from whom a type of data can be generated, who
then refers the researcher to other informants. 1
Informants are a diverse group of women with significant experience in Turkish advertising. There
are three CEO’s among the informants. Leyla who has been in the advertising industry for 22 years is
the CEO of a local agency. Zeynep with 25 years of advertising experience is the CEO of a local agency
and Pınar who has worked in Turkish advertising for 18 years is the CEO of a local agency. The
general manager of an international agency, Nazlı with 20 years of industry experience and the
country head of an international agency, Aylin with 28 years of advertising experience were among
the informants. There were two creative directors among the informants, Gül with 20 years of
industry experience and Aslı with 26 years of advertising experience in Turkey. Two art directors
were among the informants. Gaye has been working in advertising for 25 years and Başak for 20
years. They both work international‐local‐partner agencies. Petek is a copywriter working for an
international agency with 15 years of experience and she was the copywriter among the informants.
Bahar is an account management director who has been working in advertising for the past 15 years.
Ceren was the personal assistant to one of the first advertising pioneers who established the first
advertising agency in Turkey in 1944. She worked for the same international‐local‐partner agency for
24 years.
The interview questions were asked to women advertisers with more than 15 years of experience
in the Turkish advertising industry. In order to clarify the terminology used and concepts mentioned
by the informants, it is important to define the job descriptions of various titles in an advertising
agency before the findings are discussed. Although the emergence of digital advertising agencies has
*
Kadir Has University, Faculty of Communication, Advertising Department.
**
Yeditepe University, Faculty of Communication, Advertising Department.
For ethical considerations the real names of the informants are replaced by pseudonyms throughout the
text.