ISTANBUL: Turkey has been the source of award-winning mobile campaigns but mobile budgets remain a small proportion of the total marketing budget and their limited size is a brake on industry growth, according to a new study from Warc and the MMA.

The State of the Industry: Mobile Marketing in Turkey, produced by Warc in association with the Mobile Marketing Association, was based on survey responses from 96 marketing and advertising professionals in that country.

This found that mobile budgets are currently less than 10% of total marketing budgets and that one third of respondents saw this as the main factor preventing industry growth.

But there are signs that this situation is starting to change, as 40% expected to see budgets grow by up to one quarter over the next year.

The advertising industry in Turkey is certainly well attuned to the effectiveness of mobile, as a series of awards this year demonstrate.

Vodafone won the Grand Prix in the 2016 Warc Prize for Innovation with Between Us, an app addressing domestic violence, while Turkcell took a gold at the Jay Chiat Strategic Excellence Awards for a campaign based around an app that monitors the blood sugar of diabetics.

Nike, meanwhile, successfully leveraged mobile to sell the national football team's replica shirts and also win Gold and Silver at the MMA Smarties.

The study further noted that social platform use alongside mobile is standard practice in Turkey; 96% of respondents used Facebook with mobile, while Instagram and Twitter were being used by 82% and 80% respectively.

Indeed, three Turkish campaigns utilising mobile and social have been shortlisted for this year's Warc Media Awards.

Multi-screening (76%) was seen as the most significant consumer trend impacting mobile strategy in the region, followed by watching video (54%).

As in most markets, mobile video is becoming increasingly important, with 70% of all respondents intending to utilise this in their marketing activities next year.

Data sourced from MMA, Warc