Consumer Citizenship, Nationalism, and Neoliberal Globalization in Turkey: The Advertising Launch of Cola Turka

Abstract

A new cola-flavored soft drink, Cola Turka, made its debut in Turkey in the middle of 2003 just after the US-led invasion of Iraq. Its marketing strategy, described as positive nationalism, started a public debate over questions of Turkish national identity and the politics of consumption. In this article, we describe and analyze this debate and the advertising launch of Cola Turka as a way to demonstrate how the construction of citizens as consumers has undergone a major transformation in contemporary Turkey. We argue that this transformation reflects a shift in the dominant nationalist ideology in Turkey away from an ideal of state developmentalism and toward an ideal of market-driven economic growth. This shift involves new strategies for defining the Turkish nation vis-a-vis other nations or, put differently, for making and managing national culture in this era of globalization. We argue that positive is hardly positive, but is instead an idealized representation of how nations ought to imagine and conduct themselves in a world order predicated on the ideology of neoliberalism. We show how although the Cola Turka advertising launch, like neoliberal nationalism in general, sought to overcome a sense of relative inferiority, the terms in which they imagined Turkish national culture struggled against this very outcome. Protests against “coca-colonization” have often taken the form of consumer boycotts—not only against Coca-Cola, but against all goods perceived as American, of which Coca-Cola is perhaps the epitome. However, a new form of protest has proliferated in the last few years: anti-Coca-Colas. In November of 2002, Taufik Mathlouthi, a Tunisian-born French entrepreneur, launched MeccaCola in Paris as part of campaign against “America’s imperialism and Zionism” (BBC News Online, 8 Jan. 2003). Within a year, Mecca-Cola had expanded to 54 countries, booking about 9 million dollars in revenue in 2003. Ten percent of Mecca-Cola’s profits are set aside as donations to groups helping Palestinian children, and another 10% as funds for local charities. Hence the company’s tag lines: “Shake your conscience! No more drinking stupid. Drink with commitment.” Three months later, Zahida Parveen, a businesswoman based in Derby, United Kingdom, launched Qibla Cola, which the CEO of the company described as “a real alternative for people concerned by the practices of the major western multinationals that support unjust causes and support the American MISSION