Interaction of cultural and socioeconomic variables in targeting ethnic consumer groups

This year marks the 50. anniversary of Turkish immigration to Germany. Even though Turkish immigrants constitute a remarkably important consumer market, there is still limited research concerning their consumer and communication behavior. Therefore, marketing communication approaches targeting this group are mostly far from representing the state of the art. In this dissertation, the Turkish immigrants in Germany are analyzed, in the first stage, on the basis of cultural and socio-economic variables in order to build more homogenous consumer groups. Thus, the suitability of the segmentation approach in the context of consumption and communication is tested by analyzing the differences between the members of the identified segments. Following this, the attitude of the members of each identified segment toward direct mailing is analyzed experimentally. Product (ethnic vs. non-ethnic), language (Turkish vs. German vs. bilingual) and timing (religious vs. regular day) are chosen as the independent parameters in the experiment. In the last chapter of the dissertation, implications for companies interested in the Turkish consumers in Germany are presented and theoretical implications for future research in the field of ethnic consumer research are introduced.