Extracting the Brand
After initial steps, full scale efforts took place in order to make the New Türkiye Brand fulfill its functions, by becoming genuinely the “national brand”.
The brand processing is a serious job. One needs to be in control of every aspects of the brand if he or she wants to create a unique picture that will represent the job for at least a decade. Some brands live more than a hundred year, while others disappear quickly, leaving room for newer and modern ones. According to branding expert Kevin Keller, one needs to develop his “brand mantra” if he wants to create his own brand. Basically, the push-off statement is the heart and soul, the foundation of all the branding efforts.
Authenticity and symbiosis are the push-off statements of the new brand of Türkiye: Discover the Potential. What the brand says and how it was created include this authenticity and symbiosis. Just like every component of the new logo have asunder meanings, the team behind the brand worked as separate elements of a major block. So, the new Türkiye brand was born.
This genuineness can be seen in the new logo as well. Every component of the new logo has a story to tell. However, one can find stories behind the components by looking at the big picture. In order to find a correct statement regarding how the brand was born, the whole story should be taken into consideration.
The new Türkiye logo and its slogan, “Discover the Potential” has gone through a progress since its launch in September, 2014. After initial steps, full scale efforts took place in order to make the New Türkiye Brand fulfill its functions, by becoming genuinely the “national brand”.
The new Türkiye logo, of course, did not emerge out of nothing. Several predecessors of the new era represented by the New Türkiye Brand have contributed to the progress, as a result, necessity for a brand and logo to unite them all and take to a new level arose.
Turquality is a good example of these predecessors. Many Turkish brands and companies benefited from the Turquality project, which aimed at creating new Turkish brands and strengthening the existing ones. One of the most successful branding consultancy&incentive projects in the whole globe, Turquality also created an awareness besides its main services, that brand is a crucial tool to increase the profitability. The brand creates an unseen yet effective added value that increases the profit per kg or per product.
And brand does not come easily, it requires a wide line of sight, a keen focusing, a strategically planned guidance and communicational skills. A brand is a “package” of a “story and promise”, and that story and promise is represented by logos, slogans, other communicational components.
The new Turkish Lira sign, can also be considered another earlier step towards the new Türkiye logo. It can be associated with “Brand Repositioning” in terms of brand and advertising strategies. When a brand or company wants to renew its brand image in the eyes of the target group, it uses brand repositioning strategy to have a fresh, young re-start, which brings in novelty and dynamism but not totally independent of the previous image and understanding. The new Turkish lira symbol was the forerunner of the change that was to take place, brought in a new image for Turkish lira, which had suffered super-inflation and eventually regulated through a redenomination and six zeroes were removed. As branding is closely correlated with the economy, this change in the economy was to be followed by a change in the understanding in other associated fields, thus the New Türkiye Brand was born.
In this regard, the New Türkiye Logo and Brand can be considered a “Brand Repositioning” strategy. Through independent and relatively small activities a communicational “capital” had accumulated, and a large-scale operation took place in order to make use of this capital with highest efficiency.
And what does the new logo represent? How does it function to be a symbol of this new phase in Türkiye’s history? As Burhan Özkan, founder and chairman of the executive board of Global Connection International Media SA stated at the dinner hosted by Turkish Exporters’ Assembly in honor of New Türkiye Brand, new logo symbolizes unity and “e pluribus unum”. As Türkiye inherited a diverse culture thanks to its unique position between the western and eastern cultural hemispheres and thanks to its imperial, multicultural past; many different components, almost can be seen as “opposing” components compose the country. Yet these differences never cause a conflict, instead it creates a harmony in which the differences are functioning as advantages.
This unique logo composed of different patterns and symbols have already found a wide use. It is visible in fairs, on products and other areas, started to “preach” its mission, inviting people to discover the potential Türkiye offers. It bears a unique and curious promise and story that is not “forbidden” to “outsiders”, instead embraces everyone who wants to join with the diverse components that form the logo, the new Türkiye Brand.