<p>There is a growing demand towards functional foods which give the consumers a chance to have a healthier diet without changing their current habits. Due to this appealing benefit, functional food market is rapidly growing and there is a raising interest in consumer research regarding functional foods. The main purpose of this study is to explore the impact of attitude towards the necessity of functional food, interpersonal influence and consumer innovativeness on functional food consumption. The secondary purpose is to find out whether functional food consumption varies according to demographic variables. The study covers 695 consumers living in İstanbul. The results show that people who believe functional foods are necessary, who are influenced by other people and who are innovative, are more likely to consume functional foods. It is also found that functional food consumption is higher among single and lower among educated people. Developing a new functional food is an expensive process and the companies need to have detailed knowledge on the products, consumer expectations and motives. So, it is believed that this study will contribute to explore functional food market and consumers in Turkey.</p>

ÖzetTürkiye'de besin destek ürünü pazarı büyümektedir. Yerli ve uluslararası üreticiler Türkiye pazarına her geçen gün yeni besin destek ürünleri sunmaktadırlar. Bununla birlikte, Türkiye'de pazarlama alanında bu ürünlerin tüketimini konu alan araştırma son derece azdır. Besin destek ürünlerini tüketenlerin demografik özelliklerini, ürünlerin bilinirlik ve kullanım oranlarını anlamak üreticiler, devlet ve ilgili sivil toplum kuruluşları için strateji tayin etme noktasında önem taşımaktadır. Bu keşifsel araştırma İstanbul'da yaşayan 18 yaş ve üzeri 673 kişiyle yapılmıştır. Veriler anket formu ile toplanmış, çalışmada cevaplayıcıların demografik özellikleri, besin destek ürünlerini kullanma nedenleri, tanıma ve tüketme oranları araştırılmıştır. Cevaplayıcıların besin destek ürünlerini kullanma nedenlerinin başında bağışıklık güçlendirme, halsizliği önleme, fiziksel ve zihinsel performansın geldiği bulgusuna ulaşılmıştır. C, B, D vitaminlerinin ve kalsiyumun kullanım oranının yüksek olduğu, glukozaminin bilinirlik ve kullanımının ise son derece düşük olduğu görülmüştür. Bu araştırmanın gelecekte sağlıklı yaşam biçimi ürünleri pazarında yapılacak nedensel araştırmalara öncülük edeceği düşünülmektedir.

Development of Internet and social media has led to significant changes in marketing. Companies are now making serious efforts to integrate social media into their marketing strategies. In order to be successful in these efforts, marketing experts need to think strategically, integrate social media campaigns into their marketing plans and use the right tools in the right way. They should also evaluate the campaign performance and its effect on business performance. The aim of this study is to define the strategic approach adopted by the companies and to explore how companies structure and measure their campaigns. First of all, literature review was made and then twenty successful Facebook campaigns were selected and analyzed through content analysis within the scope of this study. The result of the analysis shows that companies used megaphone strategy (by informing consumers through pages, advertisements and videos) and magnet strategy (by creating an environment for interaction through applications, surveys and competitions), however they did not use monitor strategy (following customers interaction with one another). Regarding how the campaigns are structured, it is found that half of them aimed to give new information and 20% aware supported in offline platforms. The most preferred tool was the Facebook page, Facebook advertisements were more popular when compared to Facebook videos and the usage rate for surveys, competitions and applications were low. It is also found that like rate and participation rate were the two basic criteria companies used to measure the campaign performance however, as the data provided by the companies were limited, it was not possible to comment on the general strategic approach they adopted.

The market for environmentally friendly products in Turkey is growing, and marketing experts are trying to understand the behavior of the consumers in this market with the help of variables such as demographic factors, information, attitudes, values and life styles. This study analyzes the effects of environmental activism, environmental knowledge and the perceived seriousness of environmental problems on green buying behavior. The study involved 516 Turkish consumers, over eighteen years of age. The results show that environmental activism, environmental knowledge and the perceived seriousness of environmental problems are all meaningful factors in environmentally friendly buying behavior. It was found that the most explanatory variables are environmental activism for proactive environmentally friendly buying behavior and the perceived seriousness of environmental problems for optional environmentally friendly buying behavior. The study is significant since it will offer insights for green marketing experts who especially target specific segments as activists, voluntary simplifiers or green consumers in Turkey.

ÖzGünümüzün yoğun rekabet ortamında, marka itibarının koruması işletmelerin gündemindeki en önemli konulardan biridir. Özellikle kriz dönemlerinde marka itibarıdaha fazla önem kazanmaktadır. İşletmelerin kriz dönemlerinde geleneksel medyanın yanı sıra onlinemedyayı da etkin bir şekilde kullanmaları gerekmektedir, çünkü internette paylaşılan bilgiler hızlı bir şekilde geniş kitlelere ulaşabilmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, markaların yaşadığı krizlerin online medyada nasıl yayıldığı, markaların bu krizleri nasıl yönettiği ve bu durumun markaları nasıl etkilediğinin irdelenmesidir. Volkswagen emisyon vakasının Türkiye'deki yansımalarının analiz edildiği çalışmada, krizle ilgili paylaşımların önemli bir kısmının sosyal medyada yer aldığı, kurumun sadece Facebook sayfasında krizle ilgili iki paylaşım yaptığı, ancakdiğer sayfalarda krize değinmediği ve sosyal medyada krize yönelik en fazla paylaşımın Twitter'da yer aldığı görülmüştür. Kriz yönetim süreci değerlendirildiğinde, kurumun krize hızlı bir şekilde tepki vererek hatasını kabul ettiği, krizi denetim altına almak ve sosyal paydaşların güvenini yeniden kazanmak için yönetimi değiştirme, araçları geri çağırma ve düzeltici önlemler alma gibi önemli adımlar attığı görülmüştür. Yaşanan kriz Türkiye'de binek otomobil pazarındaki satışların ve pazar payının düşmesine neden olmuştur. ABD ve Avrupa'da da araç satışları düşüş göstermiştir. Çalışmada krizin marka üzerindeki farklı etkilerine de değinilmiştir. THE EFFECT OF ONLINE MEDIA ON BRANDS IN CRISIS AND A RESEARCH ON AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY A b s t r a c tIn today's highly competitive environment, protecting the brand reputation is one of the most important issues for companies. Brand reputation becomes more important in times of crisis. Companies need to use online media as well as traditional media during a crisis because any information shared on the internet can reach large groups of people in a very short time. The aim of this research is to define how brand crisis spread over the internet, how these crises are managed and how they affect brands. Within the research, online reflections of Volkswagen emission crisis in Turkey are analyzed and it is found that most of the reflections took place in social media, the brand shared only two explanations on its Facebook page but did not mention the crisis on its other social media accounts and most of the news on VW crisis were shared on Twitter.Regarding the crisis management process, it is observed that the company immediately accepted its fault and made a significant effort to control the crisis and regain trust among its shareholders by changing the management, recalling the cars affected by the crisis and taking corrective actions. The crisis caused a decline in sales and market share figures of VW pessanger cars in Turkey. Sales declined in the USA and Europe as well. Other effects of the crisis were also mentioned in the study.