Marketing Strategies for the Generation “C” Consumer Behavior: An Overview for the GSM Market in Turkey

Introduction

Today people are both the producers and the consumers of knowledge as well as both products and services and as a result of “value”; going further from Gronroos (2006) who argues that the manufacturer is only a source provider for the consumers who produce what they want, he wanted to point out to the importance of the subject that those consumers are from generation C and stated that they are the consumers would shape the next phase of marketing theory (Lush and Vargo, 2006b, p. 284; Gronroos, 2006b, pp.324-400; Cova and Dalli, 2009, p.316). This possible contribution of the generation C will bring to the essence of changing consumer behavior and marketing strategy developed in parallel lies.

In this study, in the light of established fundamental distinction based on the generation classification, the general characteristics of the generation named Generation “C”, consumer behavior and today's popular strategies among the developed marketing strategies for this generation are emphasized. On each study on this generation shaped by increased globalization and rapidly changing technology will allow to see the changes in marketing world in the following years and allow to see the clues that may well be the road leading up to the study, especially aiming to make a general framework and roadmap for marketing managers and academicians.

According to today's changing market conditions and consumer behavior, one of the basic building blocks of consumer behavior research is the generations in recent years. Starting from this point, the objective of this study is to research on the strategies developed for generation C, examine the perception to this generation in Turkey and explore if there are specific marketing strategies in Turkish GSM market for this generation.

As one of the determinants of next twenty year’s marketing strategies trend will be the new generation’s main characteristics and attitudes; this study has been prepared in an exploratory research format and aims to contribute to future studies by increasing the awareness of the subject and draw the picture of today’s market’s approach to this generation.

A two-stage method is employed for the study. First, the boundaries discriminating the “generation C” from other generations are tried to be determined based on the literature. The academic literature was scanned as a secondary source and the generation C was examined from various aspects in the World and in Turkey specifically. According to the results of the screening on the definitions made on Generation “C”, the consumer behavior of this generation and the marketing strategies that have been developed for this generation, a renewed framework has been drawn. Then, the GSM sector has been observed to be the most indispensable sector according to the main characteristics of the group. Based on this finding, an in depth interview has been carried out with an expert in Turkcell which is the one of the largest GSM companies in Turkey to learn the awareness of the general attitude and approach of the GSM sector about generation “C” and to see the developed marketing strategies for this generation from a managerial perspective.