Turkish Agencies Barem and OPR Research Join Forces

In Turkey, full service agency Barem and retail panel specialist OPR Research have signed an agreement to provide mutual clients with a combined range of 'new generation' information services. Separately, OPR exec Ali Levent Orhun will join Barem in January as CEO.

Barem, which was founded 32 years ago by Pervin Olgun, offers a range of qual and quant techniques, and is a member of the 75-country WIN/Gallup network. Retail specialist OPR Research determines market trends and establishes 'go-to-market' strategies for the mobile phone, tablet, IT, consumer electronics and home appliances sectors; while also tracking prices and promotions for FMCG companies.

Together, Barem and OPR will offer a range of insight and foresight services. Commenting on the deal, Olgun said that through OPR's big retail data sets, clients will be able to forecast by modelling the correlation between retail data and customer specific ad hoc research findings. Olgun will be President of the partnership.

Levent Orhun will take up the CEO role in January, after two years at OPR. He previously spent fifteen years at GfK, where he latterly served as Managing Partner and held 35% of merged firms Procon and GfK until 2005. Earlier, he worked clientside at brewer Marmara Bira, Seagrams and P&G.

Web sites: www.barem.com.tr and www.opr.com.tr .