Multicultural marketing in Europe
sıla
the home you return to
0090 helps brands reach Europe’s Turkish and Muslim diaspora: millions of people who live, work and shop here, and whom most marketing still talks past.
Stand out by standing with people’s culture and identity.
The audience
Germany’s largest community with a migration history is Turkish.
2.6 million people in Germany have Turkish roots by the official count. That is 3.2% of the population, and 44% of them were born in Germany. But the official count stops at the grandchildren of those who arrived. Include the third and fourth generation, and by our estimate the Turkish diaspora in Germany is over 5 million people.
In 2023, 3.4 million Turkish citizens living abroad were registered to vote, 2.8 million of them in nine European countries. That counts only adults with a Turkish passport. Add their children, those who hold only a European passport, and the third and fourth generation, and by our estimate nearly 10 million people across Europe have Turkish roots. That is more than the population of Austria, Denmark or Finland: a consumer market the size of an EU country, here for 65 years.
diaspora
~10M
people with Turkish roots across Europe, by our estimate.
9.2M
people live in Austria. The diaspora is larger than an EU member state.
5M+
in Germany, once the third and fourth generation are counted.
Sources: Destatis, Mikrozensus 2025; YSK registered voters abroad, 2023; Eurostat, 1 January 2025; 0090 estimate. Method on the Why page.
ekonomi
The economy
An economy, not a niche.
€50bn
annual turnover of Turkish-origin businesses in Germany.
500k
people employed by those businesses.
89k
self-employed people of Turkish origin, the second-largest group of migrant entrepreneurs in Germany.
The diaspora doesn’t only buy. It builds. Turkish-origin entrepreneurs in Germany turn over about €50 billion a year and employ around 500,000 people. That is the economic weight behind the households your brand wants to reach, and the business owners your sales teams already meet.
Sources: Auswärtiges Amt and GTAI, via deutschland.de (2019); study for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs (2016), via deutschland.de (2021).
The gap
America made this a category. Europe hasn’t yet.
In the US, multicultural marketing has its own budgets, its own agencies and its own industry body. Even there it is underfunded: in 2018 multicultural Americans were almost 40% of the population and received 5.2% of ad spend.
In Europe, there usually isn’t a line in the plan at all. Brands reach the diaspora by accident, through general-market media, with creative made for someone else.
That is not a diversity problem. It is a reach problem.
What changes
People notice when a brand knows them.
64%
feel under-represented in advertising.
78%
are more likely to buy from brands that reflect their culture sincerely.
We asked 500 Turkish-Europeans across the EU how advertising sees them. Brands grow by being easy to think of and easy to buy. Language, family, food and the moments of the year are some of the strongest memory cues a brand can use. Used well, they make a brand the obvious choice.
0090 survey, April 2025, 500 respondents across the EU.
How we work
Most teams don’t have a diaspora brief. So we start before the brief.
01
3 weeks
Opportunity Brief
How big the diaspora opportunity is in your category, where it sits, and what it takes. A document you can take to your board.
02
Strategy
Audience, insight, cities, channels and budget split.
03
Creative and production
Made with people from the community, in front of and behind the camera.
04
Media and measurement
Turkish-language and general-market channels, measured against the goals set in step one.
Who we work for
Everyday categories, where habits are formed early and kept for years.
Automotive
Family cars, financing, and the long drive home each summer.
For many families the car has to carry everyone across Europe once a year, so it is a family decision, and a good recommendation travels fast through relatives.
Food and FMCG
The weekly shop, the family table, Ramadan and Bayram.
Food sits at the centre of family life and hospitality, and a brand that earns its place at the table tends to keep it for a generation.
Home care
Products bought every week, where switching takes a reason.
In homes where guests are part of every week, a clean home is hospitality, and products that earn trust are passed on between relatives and neighbours.
Kids and family
Parents raising children between two languages.
Muslim Europeans are on average 13 years younger than other Europeans, so more households are raising children, and parents look for brands that respect both of their children’s worlds.
Public institutions
Information that has to arrive, in a voice people trust.
Millions of residents are poorly reached by general public campaigns, and information spreads fastest when it comes through voices and channels the community already trusts.
Who we are
A Berlin team, at home in both cultures.
0090 is a team of eight multicultural strategists, creative directors and art directors, part of Tolien Digital, a Berlin group with its own creative and software teams. It is led by its founder, Gökcan Aydogan. Senior people stay on every account, from the first brief to the last report.
References
Brands and institutions that trust us
Thinking
Notes on a market Europe hasn’t named yet.
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From the Turkish to the Muslim Diaspora
What carries over across Europe’s 25 million Muslims, and what has to be relearned for every community.
2 min
-
Public Information That Arrives
What institutions learn when they reach the community with facts and trusted voices instead of slogans.
1 min
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Measuring What a Diaspora Campaign Actually Did
Reach, brand effects and sales in an audience that most research panels under-sample.
2 min
Contact
Let’s talk business.
Tell us your category and your markets. We’ll tell you honestly whether the diaspora is a real opportunity for you. A first conversation takes 30 minutes and costs nothing.
aydogan@0090agency.com
