The science of Marketing is full of many funny, yet meaningful stories.
Behind each story there is a marketing concept and moreover a marketing effort. One of the famous stories in marketing was told in the 1930s and it basically states that a shoe manufacturing company decided to expand its exporting markets to Africa.
So, two of the marketing gurus of the company were sent to stay for one year in Africa and study the major African markets.
After one year, the first one returned back with total disappointment and informed his superiors that in Africa all people are barefooted and there is no chance to sell shoes to people who don’t wear shoes first place.
At the same time the other man also returned back with sheer joy and informed his superiors that the company has great opportunity to make huge sales in Africa because no body is wearing any shoes there and they would be the first.
The different perspectives of marketing just add to its attractiveness.
I couldn’t help thinking of this story when we decided to extensively enter the Turkish market.
There is a lot of resemblance between this story and the experience of Oriental Weavers penetrating the Turkish market.
Turkey is such an impossible market to target due to the fact it is a major manufacturer of machine-made carpets.
Any research will surely confirm that it is very difficult to sell any more machine-made area rugs in the Turkish market because simply the market must be saturated.
Well, Oriental Weavers just won another challenge in the global rug market.
The process of entering the Turkish market started in 2003 with a basic study of the market, competitors, consumer behavior, trends, selling seasons, prices, and overall economic situation.
The research revealed that even though the Turkish market is full of rugs made by several Turkish manufacturers, still there was high demand for rugs unique in quality, construction, designs, and colors. The Turkish manufacturers didn’t perform well-studied and thorough research about the changing demands and requirements of the customers, and instead they kept supplying the market with the same traditional patterns and colors that the customers got tired of.
The lack of unique qualities, designs, and colors created a gap that Oriental Weavers was able to fill.
So, in 2004, in cooperation with a serious Turkish partner, Hali Drom, the area rugs of Oriental Weavers started to flow in the Turkish market.
The market research continued on to get the early feedback of the dealers about the different kinds of qualities that were exported to the market.
The results were really impressive. All the dealers and distributors were satisfied with the quality, design, and colors of the products.
So, immediately a plan was set to establish regional selling offices in Turkey and seven regional offices were established in the major cities, like Istanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Antalya, Izmir, and few others.
Throughout the year some qualities proved their enormous success, like Scala, Vegas, and Details, while others were not successful in the same way, like Retro, Tropicana, and Focus.
So, 2004 was the unofficial introduction year of Oriental Weavers in Turkey where the dealers got to know more about the company and its products.
In 2005, the market research continued in cooperation with Hali Drom.
More products, designs, and colors were developed to match the changing demand of Turkish customers.
The Turkish fashion is very similar to the European and world fashion, so keeping up with the expectations as a global brand was a must.
A ten-color, fine polypropylene quality was developed, where all the ten colors were matching with the fashionable colors of 2005 in Turkey.
More developments took place and more qualities were chosen to be presented to the market aiming to increase the product portfolio in Turkey.
As of mid-2005 where three of the four elements of the marketing mix (product, price, distribution) were arranged, it was time to focus on the fourth element, promotion.
It was time that the end consumers in Turkey hear about Oriental Weavers as a global brand just like they hear about Motorola, Kelvin Klein, and other famous brands known for their superiority as global, bench-mark brands.
In December 2005, after 3 month of planning, a creative promotional campaign was launched in Turkey to create brand awareness of Oriental Weavers.
The campaign has focused on TV commercials, printed advertisements, and public billboards in metro and bus stations.
The campaign will enable the Turkish customers to recognize Oriental Weavers as a brand known for its excellence and superiority, and a brand that they can trust to fill their needs for fashion and good taste.
The campaign will be conveying the message that Oriental Weavers is a brand totally different than any other brand the Turkish customer has ever tried before.
The campaign is expected to boost sales, especially is launched in the peak season for carpets and rugs in Turkey.
The early feedback of the campaign suggests that the campaign has aroused the interest of many dealers and customers who didn’t deal with Oriental Weavers before and now are keen to know more about the company and the brand. The efforts are still going on to continue expand sales and market share in Turkey.
The future plans include establishing more regional offices, introducing new products, and establishing a warehouse.
The success in Turkey suggests that it is possible to penetrate other once-thought impossible markets, like Iran.
It is surely an achievement to be inside Turkey, and the challenge now is to be number one there.
So, more efforts would be done in the future to maintain and expand the global status achieved in other markets and at the time being we can simply welcome our new, promising market…..”Hello Turkey”.
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