We performed an enjoyable interview with Mr. Onur Özyurt who is General Manager of Kopaş Cosmetics. And talked about development process of the company, areas of activity and the great success of Dalin.
Can you tell us about yourself and your professional background?
I am the General Manager of Kopaş Cosmetics. I graduated from Boğaziçi University’s Department of Business Administration. After completing my postgraduate studies in Finance at the same university, I started Harvard Business School’s GMP Business Administration program.
In 2013, I joined Kopaş Cosmetics as a member of Board of Directors and since 2014, I have been working there as the General Manager. Before joining Kopaş Cosmetics,
I took part in various projects in private enterprise capital and investment banking industries in Turkey, the Balkans and the Middle East and worked in various positions as a board member in entertainment, retail and pharmaceutical industries for 13 years.
Can you share Kopaş Cosmetics’ success story since the day it was established until today with our readers?
In 1974, pharmacist Adil Karaağaç founded Kopaş Cosmetics, which now is one of the local leader companies in cosmetics and care products industry with its experience of 44 years.
Kopaş Cosmetics have 10 active brands in baby care, personal care and house care categories. Kopaş Cosmetics is the number one company in Turkey in baby care and wax products. We continue our activities with 500 employees in our 24.000 m2 facility.
We sustained a steady growth since our establishment. When we look at Kopaş Cosmetics’ milestones; we presented our consumers Dalin brand in 1983, we entered professional hair care products category in 1994, we undertook Voila brand’s distributorship in 1995, we entered colorful cosmetics category with Alix Avien brand in 1997.
In 2000‘s, we entered a new breakthrough period; we started actively working with Romania in 2001, we bought off Sesu brand in 2004, we launched our perfume and deodorant brand XO in 2005, we started distributing Dr. Beckmann products in Turkey and Romania in 2008.
As for 2010‘s; we launched Alix Natura hair dye in 2012, we reinvented Dalin and Sesu brands in 2015, we undertook the Turkey distributorship of Humana baby formula and tea products in 2016 and Spanish hair care products brand Montibello in 2017. In 2018, we presented Japan’s leading baby diaper brand to Turkish consumers.
What are your products and in which sectors are you active?
Kopaş Cosmetics have a rather wide product range and has products to offer to consumers from all ages and parts of the community. Kopaş Cosmetics’ Dalin brand has been the number one choice of mothers and kids for years.
Wax and depilatory products brand Sesu is Turkey’s best-selling wax brand. XO, Alix Natura, Foot Doctor brands are also among widely appreciated and preferred products by consumers.
Can you tell us about Dalin’s secret for successfully preserving its place on shelves since 1983?
In addition to a wide product range, Dalin also offers a sense of trust to its consumers. We offer the mothers a wide range of products including hair care, skin care, laundry care and baby wipes products, all designed for babies under Dalin brand.
Even though baby shampoo is Dalin’s most wellknown product, we also offer various products including hair and body shampoo and easy-comb spray in microphone-shaped toy bottle in hair care products category; baby oil, rash cream, baby soap and foam soap, baby cologne, powder, and Vaseline in skin care category; liquid laundry detergent, granule soap and baby laundry softener in laundry care category; baby wipes, diaper changing mat, pocket wipes in paper care products category.
While manufacturing our products, we closely follow new technologies both in equipment and raw material wise.
Can you tell us about the “Fun with Dalin” project? What is the goal and what do you think about the feedbacks?
As Dalin, we have been organizing this event every month free of charge since 2017 with the cooperation of PACE Çocuk Sanat Merkezi (Children’s Art Center). With this event, we support children in transforming their dreams into art.
Within the framework of the event, children can present their skills while having fun with special materials and crayons. Last year, “Fun with Dalin” Workshop received FELİS Award. Each month, we are helping children in transforming their dreams into different forms of art with experienced teachers and different activities.
Your “Mothers are Confiding in Dalin” project was widely appreciated by mothers. Can you tell us about this project, which helps mothers in baby care?
As Dalin, we asked the questions most frequently asked by mothers, who are hoping to achieve the best in caring for their children, to other mothers and we created a series of short videos of real mothers’ experiences.
We are listening to the questions of mothers, who were blindsided by certain issues after their pregnancy and forwarding messages of other mothers who have had the same issues. Our “Mothers are Confiding in Dalin” short film series have more than ten episodes.
In these episodes, we are sharing real mothers’ experiences and fond memories from washing hands to giving baths with other mothers. Our greatest aim is to make the mothers forget about being the “perfect” mother and make them remember that being a mother is perfect enough.
What are your domestic and international sales activities? To which parts of Turkey and the world do you sell your products? Which factors do you consider while selecting these areas?
In Turkey, which is our main market, we consistently record a 25-30% growth each year. In the last three years, we doubled our turnover. We are hoping to end this year with TRY 400 million. Our competition in Turkey are world brands, but despite that, we are the market leader.
We are exporting almost to 30 countries including the USA, England, and Germany. We employ 35 people in our partnership in Romania, which was established in 2001. Through this partnership, we can offer our complete product range to Romanian consumers.
In order to improve our export, we listed our Dalin branded products for leader retail chains in Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia in 2018. In September, we will be reaching out to consumers through television advertisements in Serbia and Romania.
We are aiming to come into operation in Albania, Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzegovina during the final quarter of 2018.
We are working on licensed production opportunities with local business partners in Northern African countries like Morocco, Algeria and Egypt. While entering these markets, without doubt we are considering market dynamics, consumer expectations and the competition.
Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technologies you use in your products? What kinds of benefits these technologies offered your brand and products?
While manufacturing our products, we closely follow new technologies both in equipment and raw material wise. We consider every work that will simplify and speed up production. Besides, we have been working on eco-labelling for the past few years.
This way, we make lifecycle assessment on our products to see what improvements we can make in production and formulas and adapt ourselves to benefit the environment from new technological developments.
Can you tell us about the social responsibility projects you organize in order to benefit the future?
As Dalin, we undertook a brand-new project in cooperation with AÇEV (Mother Child Education Foundation) to ensure that every child in their early ages are safe, healthy, happy, and learning.
We took being mothers’ secret helper as our mission and started our tale books projects with the entertaining Dalin language to teach children between 4 and 7 years old about self-care.
First book of the series aims to get children adopt washing hands as a habit. Within the framework of our project, we are hoping to reach out to schools and more than 20.000 children in Turkey to support them in their development.
We are supporting thisproject with Dalin Foam Soap, which makes washing hands practical and fun with its foam form and which received thumbs up from mothers.
