Go Global Eastern Europe Best 2 Weeks Ever

So here's my trip in roughly 2 min and 15 sec. This is part of my marketing class and needs to help promote these Go Global trips, namely the Eastern Europe one. 

I had a ton of fun on my trip and really want people to be able to experience what I was able to do. It was great learning and growing. 

So I hope you like it. 

Bartering is a MUST!!!

So one of my most favorite parts of shopping in Russia and Turkey was the bartering. Walking away from a shop feeling you were able to talk the shop keeper down to a lower price, was the greatest feeling I had.

We went to two great places for bartering in Russia we went to a little souvenir shop it was way cute and full of lots of great presents, from matryoshka dolls, to music boxes, to Faberge Eggs. It was great we went so many times we actually made friends with some of the shop keepers. We all helped each other out with the bartering. We found that some of us were much better at it than others.

The other great place we got to go barter was at the Grand Bazaar in Turkey. It was a shopaholics paradise. There were over 4,000 shops and the place was filled with so many people. The shops even extended out onto the street, and down through the tourist areas. It was a little bit more difficult to barter at the Grand Bazaar because the shop keepers would only focus on you and there didn't really seem to be a winner in the bartering game there.

One of the biggest differences that I saw between bartering in Turkey and Russia was the gratification. You could tell that the shop owners in Turkey really didn't like getting a price much lower than what they asked for. however it was more gratifying in Russia because their currency was so weak compared to the USD. It was a $1 to 33 ruble ratio. So it made all of us much more excited when the shop keeper agreed to drop from 1500 rubles to 800. But in Turkey it took much longer to get the shop keeper to drop from 25 to 15 Lyra. While we were there $1 was worth 1.8 Lyra.

The other interesting shopping difference between Russia and Turkey was how willing the shop keepers were to take your money. While we were in Russia if I said that I was "Just looking" the owner/seller just moved on to another more willing customer. But while in Turkey the "Just looking" comment returned with a rebuttal of "I'm just selling". It was crazy because in Russia they were willing to let your money go but in Turkey they really wanted to take your money, in any way shape or form. 

Different Environments Different Marketing

So here comes a topic I find interesting. Since we didn't get to spend too much time in each country I had a hard time finding out what many of the major US company's (IE: Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonald's, Burger King, etc...) marketing strategy's were. However I did notice a huge change in the delivery of the preferred marketing of the different areas in which we visited.

While in Russia it was interesting to find that many people had and drove frequently their own vehicle. It was fun because the marketing strategy's followed this, the ads were large enough and simple enough to look at while driving by. This was really different from Turkey because theirs was more geared to the pedestrian, there were lots of little billboards just on the street that you could look at and read from the street. In Taksim square there were even very large shopping bags placed out as an advertisement for a huge shopping event going on.

It also surprised me that there were very few ads on the public transportation in Turkey. In Russia they had them all over the Metro system having at least 24 to 48 ads in one train car, but Turkey's tram system was very clean and didn't have much advertising. From personal experience if I wanted to promote my product anywhere it'd be on the Turkish tram system, the trains were so full that you could barely breathe.

I guess this just goes to show that there is great use in the placement, and considering I just got a topical glance at many of these ads and didn't get to see every aspect of the delivery methods I can't really judge  how or where they advertise and promote their products. 

Died and Gone to Female Heaven

So sadly this one comes with out many/any pictures. But I have to admit that when we were shopping in Turkey we found this amazing haven that every woman needs to see. Well that's the preface so on to the story. While shopping in Istanbul some of the girls found some really cute earrings and I was determined to find some for myself. So we started walking home from the Grand Bazaar looking for the best place to find these earrings. We were walking down the street looking at all of the places that had similar earrings. We were walking down the street and found some nice ones. That's when the shop owner walked up to us and asked us if we wanted to see more, he claimed that he had thousands more at his shop.

So carefully we decided we'd follow him we walked into this side shop and down some stairs and even from the top of the stairs we realized that we were going to a really chill place. There were necklaces and bracelets everywhere. We got to what we were looking for, the earrings, and there were literally thousands of every shape style and color that we were looking for. Here's one pair we found. Well to say the least I walked out of there with 11 pair of earrings and they were cheaper than the ones that were purchased by our friends.

Well... looking back and looking at all the stuff in the store you could tell that some of the stuff there was very old some older than others everything covered in a fairly slight layer of dust, some more than others. But you could see that some of the stuff was older than others, the styles changed. You could tell the shop owner had things that met every one's personality style and preferences, the owner also made stuff for every time. He only displayed outside a very small portion of his selection but he also provided a great selection in his store. He knew his market and he knew how the pricing worked and offered better prices (1 for 1.5 vs 3 for 5). He was so excited to see us and had such a great price we didn't even care to barter with him.

I really wish I had a pic of the shop for ya'll it was amazing

Marketing support in Turkey

While on business visits in Turkey we visited a company called Starcom Media Vest Group. This business focused on marketing placement in Turkey. Starcom did a lot of marketing research and even a little bit of design for a few of those customers not quite prepared for the marketing section they want to enter. The research they presented to us showed how the Turkish people like to spend their time, and the best places to present their ads. This company also ensured the quality of the placement in the market.

It actually never occurred to me that placing the ads is just as important as the the design of the ad as well as the product. This group really seemed focused on the online advertising for their clients. With turkey as one of the main user groups on Facebook and Twitter. Their research also showed that online advertising was increasing and becoming a greater platform for promoting goods to the younger population. They didn't share much about how they market themselves to the businesses that use their services but it was interesting to see how they work with their customers to place their ads in the most reliable, best place for the market group that they are looking for.

Popeye's in Turkey not in Utah... What???

There were many surprises on this trip. One of which was how many American franchises there were in Russia but mostly in Turkey. My favorite one had to have been Popeye's. My family lived on the East coast for a while and one of our favorite places to eat had to be Popeye's. And now when ever we go back east we always make it a tradition to go to Popeye's and get Cajun fires and fried chicken. It surprised me that most of the food courts that we went to had a Popeye's, along with at least a dozen other American franchises.

There were also many other franchises there were countless McDonald's, Burger King's, Sbarro, Starbucks, Popeye's, Dunkin Donuts, and even Papa John's. This was very interesting because while there were many American franchises there were not many other similar types of franchises there. It was crazy because where ever we went I never found the same Turkish resturants. It appeared to me that there were no Turkish franchises. It was very similar in Russia. All of the resturants that were the same were American franchises. It was hard for me to think that the there were no foregin resturants that were franchised.

The thing that surprised me the most was that the only one of these American franchises that I saw advertise hard core was McDonalds, (remember the Golden Escelator) now we really didn't get newspapers or watch too much TV but the most advertising I saw for these other franchises were all on the windows of the shops, not much else.

55 Locations??? and I thought Americans loved fast food

Turkey's advertisements were very different from Russia. My favorite one had to be the crazy amount of advertising. In Turkey I felt like I was constantly bombarded with ads, and promotions. Some of these bombardments included, but not limited to, promoted security checks at the mall, sponsored turnstiles on the metro, and last but not least promoted escalators.

The best promoted escalator had to have been the McDonald's escalators, and there was no way you could miss them. Mostly because you had to walk under the golden arches to ride up the escalator or continue off the down escalator. It was completely breath taking but it was funny because the only people who seemed to notice were the tourists, namely us, partly because Vijay pointed it out... but considering the grander of this arch it was hard to miss.

It was crazy how much more McDonald's promoted themselves in Europe versus in the US. To add to the amazingness of McDonald's in Europe, with around 55 locations on the European side of Turkey alone. This is interesting because even in the US there isn't as many in one city. It amazes me that such a large US company can be able to build, market and sustain that many locations in one city. However there were a few issues while at the McDonald's in Taksim we had real issues, with getting our food and the timeliness of the ordering process. So what would have been a quick 7 min trip to McDonald's ended up being a 20 min endeavour racing the clock to not miss our bus.