Day Two: Procter and Gamble Visit

Day two in Istanbul was a jam-packed day. We did have our first jetlag related casualty—me. The alarm I set on my TV didn’t go off and the wake-up call never came so when we were suppose to meet in the lobby at 8:30 A.M. for departure, I was sound asleep in bed. Thankfully, Carrie had a heart and Jon gave me a call as I was only 10 minutes late. Not my best day.

We hit up the Spice Bizarre in the morning for an hour and a half of negotiating with local vendors for trinkets and such. The 2nd years were able to put their negotiations class skills to good use and Ben Lawnicki came away with a haul in the spice department. The Bizarre (yes, they actually call it a bizarre) was followed by a boat cruise on the Bosphorous River, which runs through Istanbul. If you don’t know, Istanbul is the only city in the world that straddles two continents—Europe and Asia. The Bosphorous is the dividing line so we were literally sailing between two continents. The weather was not the best—cold and rainy—but it was fun nevertheless. The P&G Turkey management team

Visiting P&G took us to Asia for the first time and what looks to be the commercial and financial capital of Istanbul. P&G rolled out the red carpet and we were given access to the General Manager over CEEMEA (Central Eastern Europe Middle East Africa), which runs from Russia to South Africa if you can grasp how big that is and the Director of Marketing, the Director of Finance, and the Director of Customer Business Development for the region. They were able to discuss not only Turkey, but the entire region, which was very interesting. In the U.S., P&G manages a ton (that is for you Amy) of brands, while Turkey has only 10. The majority of the brands are marketed under local names (for example, Crest is Ipana) because they bought local companies.

However, P&G rolled out two new brands to Turkey in the last year under their American names—Head and Shoulders and Olay. In the U.S., shampoo products typically focus on both the emotional and functional benefits of products and primarily for women, it is the color, appearance, feel, texture of the hair. However, in Turkey that is not the main concern, which is why Head and Shoulders, which specializes in dandruff prevention was chosen. Since so many women where head scarves, appearance is not a major concern for consumers, but function is.

I guess the major takeaway for me was that you really must identify your consumers’ needs. It seems like a lot of American companies in Turkey try to use the same messages that are used in Europe, but the consumers are very different.

I know this is long so I will finish up. Dinner that was night an interesting experience. After two consecutive meals of kebobs or kebaps (didn’t realize you spelled it was a p until I got here), we went for seafood, which would be fairly harmless. Except, the fish was served whole—head and tail on, bones in. For the 26 of us, I think this was a new experience for at least 20 including yours truly. But it gets better, a belly dancer (which is questionable, but that is another story) worked, I mean worked, the table. Every male had the pleasure or horror of receiving her undivided attention for 30 seconds. She would not leave until everybody paid her, well except one. She would not except coins so Joe Worley was out of look. She was a cash business. I guess that is a little piece of knowledge you can drop the next time you are in Turkey.

At least Brian didn't ask for change.

Here’s to trashy belly dancers and random ship salesmen….cheers!