This is a guest post by Tolga Şenel, founder of SporLab.

Come. Come. Whoever You Are.

Beşiktaş is the third best followed team in Turkey. Their global appeal is on the rise, compounded by recent on-field success and strong communication campaigns and messages off it.

The famous #ComeToBeşiktaş hashtag started as a fan initiative to attract potential transfers to the club and became very popular on social media in 2017 summer transfer window. It has roots back to Demba Ba’s move from Chelsea but the initial milestone was Pepe’s transfer negotiations.

The transfer announcement videos created by fan groups (with support from club’s transfer committee members) are very simple but proven effective. A current player with connection to a new transfer prospect calls the target and urges him to #ComeToBeşiktaş – the new transfer then responds as “I am coming to Beşiktaş”. A harlem shake-style music riff starts up after the image gets comic-style makeover with “Bam Bam Bam” marks (a reference to a style of play with passion and strictly no tactics).

The videos presented Pepe, Negredo, Lens, Medel and Vida transfers. Beşiktaş fans also pushed the club to make a move for Diego Costa. The former Chelsea striker recieved a staggering number of some 300k likes and almost 4m comments, vast majority saying CometoBeşiktaş, on one of his Instagram posts.

Com meu Parceiro @petrosaraujo !!

A post shared by Diego Costa (@diego.costa) on Jul 4, 2017 at 6:40pm PDT

The fan-led #ComeToBeşiktaş campaign was welcomed and supported by club officials and became a strong communication tool. Beşiktaş’s opponents at the Champions League created videos saying We are Coming to Beşiktaş before they travelled to Istanbul and the positive conversation grown gradually.

Beşiktaş’s communications department seems to decide to take the buzz to a next level. A global campaign is created by combining the message ComeToBeşiktaş with the poet Rumi’s global message “Come. Come. Whoever You Are.”.

Kartal Yuvası (Eagle’s Nest), Beşiktaş’s merchandising brand, partnered with one of the global design brands Les Benjamins to create a special collection. The founder of Les Benjamins, Bünyamin Aydın, utilises the textures and messages of Anatolian sufism in his designs.

Beşiktaş organised a big launch event for its global #ComeToBeşiktaş campaign and released first visuals and videos of the series. This is the first globally appealing and well structured strategic marketing communication campaign of a Turkish club. It accurately combines the fans’ campaign with the globally appealing and inclusive message of Rumi and images of diversity.

Apparently Turkish clubs may not be able to compete with clubs from the ‘big five’ leagues in terms of the quality of football or number of star players but they can associate themselves with their cultural roots and messages to appeal more international supporters.