The Story Behind the Story: What Global Brands Teach Us About Culture and PR
Communication always starts with a story. From ancient world to today, there are plenty of examples: an eye-catching or attention-grabbing content always find its audience.
Today, telling a good story or structuring proper content is not the number one concerns for communication practitioners. What we need to focus more is what lies behind the story.
2006 was the year that I stepped into communication world through a media outlet. In the world of newsroom, you always fight for the story. If the topic is breaking news, then the fight takes another dimension: timing, in another words, who will be the first to tell, or to announce. The risk is high, so the award, the appreciate and the satisfaction.
In the world of corporate communication, risk is high only when there is a potential for crisis. In corporate word, the risk appetite is low. Because it is quite costly, and reputation is, if not the only but thing, certainly the biggest thing you may lose and never get back. In this article, I will give you two examples that underline why culture matters if the topic is communication.
Cultural Risk in Türkiye: What the Bosch Case Reveals
Culture is a system of values. Actions create histories for a society. Histories lay the foundation of values. So, everything eventually leads back to the culture, to understanding values of the society we live in.
Communicators must therefore understand the culture more deeply, consider the social memory, and follow the agenda closely. Otherwise, it becomes a costly learning process.
“Türkiye is a young republic founded on quite strong and old traditions, from military to governance, carrying an imperial consciousness dated back to centuries.”: I am aware that this sentence itself is quite complex, but it signals, or hides traces of, the issues the Turkish society has been facing for a long time as well as the crises that follow for them.
As one of issues that I mention every time I discuss the state of communication, the topic of “modernisation in Türkiye” is the strongest factor in any kind of public relations practice that help communicators reduce the risk of potential crisis.
Türkiye has grown used to living with crisis. Social crisis has become part of daily life here. In this kind of environment, many crisis that would damage brands elsewhere might lose their impact, if you don’t step on anyone’s toes. And if that “someone” is the government, the scenario, the cost, change entirely.
Every year, as happens in many countries, brands in Türkiye plan campaigns to celebrate Mother’s Day.
Bosch Türkiye was among the brands that wanted to demonstrate their respects for Turkish mothers through an advertisement, or to remind their target and potential consumer audience that the day was approaching, best celebrated by purchasing a Bosch product.
What did the advertisement say? Two women talk to each other, mentioning their children. However, by the end of advertisement, it becomes clear that one of the mothers was actually referring about her pet as their children. As put on a news platform: “In its advertising film prepared for Mother’s Day on May 10th, Bosch Türkiye expanded on the concepts of motherhood and childhood, illustrating them through the theme of pet ownership.”
What happened next?
Yeni Şafak, a conservative and Islamist daily newspaper in Türkiye known for its strong support of Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party, claimed the brand’s advertisement targeted the traditional family structure and amounted to “dogs instead of children” propaganda. Second blow came from the Ministry of Family and Social Services. The minister herself tweeted via her official X account, stating that “motherhood and family are concepts that cannot be opened to debate or substituted with other forms of affection.” The third major step followed: the Radio and Television Supreme Council launched an investigation into the advertisement over the concerns about family values. In the end, Bosch Türkiye removed the advertisement without any statement. Finally, things had calmed down in two days.
So, what do the numbers actually say about the “crisis”? According to KONDA research conducted in July 2024, the rate of pet ownership in Turkish society stands at 6 percent.
Nothing more.
This ad was a hot topic in my close circle of friends too. What we have focused on in our discussion was that the reasoning behind the ad: was there any market research that drove the campaign? We will never know. If you look at the price range of Bosch’s product, you might be able a guess: this was never really about consumer or the target audience in the first place.
And, what was actual the cost of their crisis? That is another thing we will never know, whether such research was ever conducted at all.
What I do know is this: there was a significant mistake, a lack of understanding of fundamental cultural issue as well as political agenda in Türkiye.
The story behind the story can be summarised in three points: a. The issue of “stray dog” is a highly impactful topic in Türkiye, directly tied to the voter base of the ruling power, b. Rising divorce rates and marriage age, and a falling fertility rate are among the core concerns in Türkiye, so much so that the President personally them the day before (!) the ad aired, c. The social memory includes the Hayırsızada Exile, which refers to the mass deportation of stray dogs living in İstanbul to Sivriada island following an outbreak of a rabies in 1910.
In short, daily agenda, political discourse and historical perspective must always be considered in Türkiye before launching communication campaign.
This is simply how it is.
The Starbucks Korea Crisis: When History Becomes a PR Liability
In the Korean example too, culture is a key crisis factor, and you can see a similar pattern in how the governments react.
In a very simple definition, what Starbucks Korea experienced was “a public relations crisis triggered when Starbucks Korea ran a discount promotion for its “Tank” tumbler series on 18 May, the anniversary of a 1980 massacre in Gwangju.” as Guardian put it:
“Starbucks branded the date of its promotion “Tank Day”. It also featured the slogan ‘thwack on the desk’, evoking a notorious police explanation for the 1987 torture death of student activist Park Jong-chul. Authorities falsely claimed he had died after an officer ‘hit the desk with a thwack’ during questioning.”
Two additional factors worth highlighting here, both valuable lessons in their own right: a. Marketers chose “thwack” slogan after consulting an AI tool, 2. Some of the managers, who approved the campaign, had never even opened the email attachments showing the marketing material.
Looking at the cultural differences helps us understand more about this crisis in the Republic of Korea, both behind the scenes and beyond: although the campaign was pulled within hours, the damage was already done. The chief executive was dismissed the very same day, May 26th. More than 2,000 stores were set to simultaneously close half a day on June 22nd for a mandatory history lesson, while Chung Yong-jin, the billionaire chair of Shinsegae Group, which operates Starbucks Korea under licence from its US parent company, was also expected to take the same training on June 24th, alongside other executives.
What was the cost of this crisis, and of the crisis management that followed? According to the figures published by the Guardian, the half-day closure of more than 2,000 stores cost approximately $1.4mln. Payment volumes, which had plunged 26% in the week following the controversy, showed signs of partial recovery, rising 12.8% in the first week of June, according to market data, though they remained about 25% below pre-controversy levels.
Every crisis causes damage, but the decision of whether to manage it properly, or not, ultimately determines the scale of that damage.
Three Rules for Culturally Aware Communication
During a presentation at a private meeting, I shared that I was not trained as a sociologist, but as a PR practitioner, I firmly believe that understanding society deeply is essential to our work. A lack of cultural and political awareness can lead to a fatal misstep, or cause serious reputational damage.
In Türkiye case, the political agenda and the political discourse are essential considerations.
What the two cases above point to three rules that are not new, but are worth repeating:
1. Know the political agenda. In Türkiye especially, what the government is saying the day before your campaign launches matters as much as your creative brief.
2. Understand social memory. Every market carries historical sensitivities that are invisible to outsiders, and immediately obvious to locals. The Hayırsızada Exile and the Gwangju massacre were not obscure history; they were live issues in their respective markets.
3. AI tools cannot replace cultural intelligence. The Starbucks Korea case is a warning for every communicator using AI in the creative process, AI can generate language, but it cannot feel the weight of a date.
Or, face a crisis. Crisis provides a unique experience, strengthen your instinct, test your resilience and force and organisation to examine itself honestly.
As I mentioned at the very beginning, Türkiye’s intense crisis agenda can sometimes work in your favour, your crisis might be forgotten within a few days, depending on the issue, but only if you have done your homework well enough.