"Research on the Contribution of Advertising to Turkish Economy" by our Faculty Member

Results of the “Research on the Contribution of Advertising to Turkish Economy”, which Ezgi Akpınar Uysal, member of Sabancı Business School, carried out with the support of IPSOS for Digital Marketing Communication Platform (DPİP) have been revealed. With this research, the value that advertising adds to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been measured in a multi-faceted way for the first time.

The report about the “Research on the Contribution of Advertising to Turkish Economy” incudes concrete assessments about the impact of advertising sector, which develops rapidly through technological innovations, on Turkish economy. Ezgi Akpınar Uysal shared her research outputs at a press conference. Accordingly, total amount of advertising and media investments in our country was 17 billion 469 million TL in 2020, and every 1 TL of advertising and media investment generated a return of 19,4 TL on domestic economy. In other words, advertising and media investments contributed to Turkey’s GDP by 6.73% in a direct and indirect way in 2020.

Among 38 countries with an annual media investment of above 1 billion USD, Turkey is the 31st biggest market in the world by the size of media investments. However, Turkey’s share in total advertising volume is only 0.33%. This rate is the lowest one among the biggest 38 markets. Accordingly, considering the rate of media investments in our country to GDP, there is a growth potential of nearly 2.5 times.  


Regarding the impact of the advertising sector on employment, the number of enterprises in this field has grown by 2.26% while salaries and wages have had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.57% since 2014. According to TurkStat employment data in 2020, 602,704 people, corresponding to 2.25% of total employment of 26,8 million people, are supported by the growth of advertising and media investments.

There is a two-sided interaction between GDP growth and the advertising sector, which is impacted by economic growth, current economic size and macroeconomic expectations. According to the modelling data, the contribution of advertising and media investments to Turkey’s GDP was 6.24% on average from 2012 to 2020, and it grew gradually over years.

Advertising, the name of a growing sector

Digital Marketing Communication Platform (DPİP) was established by four associations that lead the marketing communication and advertising sector in Turkey, namely Advertising Clients Association (RVD), Advertising Agencies Association (RD), Interactive Advertising Association (IAB), and Mobile Media Research, Marketing and Advertising Association (MMA). During his opening speech at the press conference, Ahmet Pura, Chair of DPİP, said the following: “Today, we are presenting the report on the Contribution of Advertising to Turkish Economy, prepared for the first time in our country with the contribution of Digital Marketing Communication Platform established under the cooperation of four associations. Further growth potential of our distinguished sector, which has a strong stimulating impact on economies, should be tapped to make the sector a sustainable one. Our motto is “Advertising, the name of a growing sector”. He thanked Dr. Ezgi Akpınar Uysal of Sabancı University, and Rabia Kalyoncu, Serkan Ceran and Özlem Bulut of IPSOS for their valuable contributions to the research.