To Be Or Not To Be 

In the famous theater play by William Shakespeare, Hamlet the Danish Prince stares at the skull in his hand and delivers the tirade that we all know: "To be, or not to be... That is the question..." Hamlet’s words can be transformed into the atmosphere of our present time as: "To create brands, or not to create brands... That is the question..." Today everybody has the chance to become “famous”, even if just for fifteen minutes. Well, one can become famous all right, but it is much less likely to “stay” famous. The key to permanence is creating brands. Turkey is endowed with quite a deep-rooted and significant tradition of carpetmaking, but the importance of brandization in this area has not yet been realized to its full extent. With a past of 50 years in this sector and a productivity of high capacity with the latest technology, Turkey has realized the importance of brandization and her great breakthrough inthe sector of productivity is highly admired by all parties concerned. Everybody familiar with the sector stresses upon the fact that “brandization” maintains a lethal significance. One of these is Mr. Ugur Uysal from Turkuaz Carpets... He has kindly expressed his views about the structure of the sector and the significance of brandization.

When did the adventure of “brandization” in the sector of carpetmaking begin in our country?

The beginning of this adventure goes back before the 1980s and to the early half of the 1980s. There were about 10 companies with established brands until 1999. There was not much production to speak of at that time, so their area of influence was mostly inside Turkey... Exporting started at the beginning of the 1980s. Limited mostly to the Middle Eastern market at first, there were only 3 or 4 companies that sold their own brands, like Atlas, Gümüssuyu, and Saray... Having secured their presence in the national market, these brands strove to keep their export especially to the Middle Asian republics and to America at full speed with new designs particularly after the 1990s. The most important reason for Turkish carpets to have made a late entry into the European market was of course Belgium’s having the upper hand in that area with its powerful stance in the carpetmaking sector of the world and its machine-made productions.       

Were new brands able to break ground after 1999?

Of course. With the increase in demand many minor producers were able to increase their investments as well, thus making themselves better known both nationally and internationally. One name that has taken great steps in the sense of brandization and proven its presence and stability in the market is the Merinos Carpets. They became a valid brand nationally and internationally, especially with their investment in advertising in the Middle Eastern and European markets.

The year of 1999 is considered as something close to a new beginning for the industry of carpetmaking in Turkey. Why would that be so?

The sole reason is that the sector of carpetmaking in Turkey has re-organized itself after 1999. First of all, there has been a drastic increase in the number of producers. Investments of much higher amounts than those before 1999 were made. Especially in the region of Gaziantep, investments to the newest technology reached unbelievable figures. Funds were transferred from many other areas into carpetmaking in Gaziantep where they had spent years mass-producing for the world’s carpet market. In the past it wasn’t felt necessary to invest in design, training, and marketing, but now the workshops of pattern, the new designs, and the increasing investments in marketing points out that Gaziantep is taking sound steps forward in the worldwide sector of carpetmaking. Still mass-producing for foreign brands, Gaziantep is in fact a candidate itself to becoming a brand.      

While a high amount of export-oriented production goes full-throttle in Turkey, we see that import gains a high speed as well.

Importing is a great need. Deficiencies in supply, and areas neglected and underestimated by export-oriented mass-production are compensated for with the imported carpets. New approaches in design enter our country with the products of the companies that have become established brands abroad. In Turkey, especially in Gaziantep, turning the existing sector of carpetmaking into a medium of easily marketed carpets of high quality and authentic design will bring a much higher income and greater durability in comparison with the mass-production in today’s conditions. This will be possible only by building brands.

When we say brandization in carpets, Belgium comes to mind. Many factories in Belgium are closed, but the brands survive. How do you evaluate this?

Carpetmaking may be in our culture, but Belgium is the very center of this business. They have the design, the fashion, and the production... But they could not stand the high rate of development in Gaziantep either, and many factories had to get closed. The closed factories sell their looms to Gaziantep and have mass-productions done for themselves here. The factory is gone, but the brand thus survives. There lies the importance of brandization. That is why they have to create their own brands and keep them alive even if they are investors producing for local or international brands, or self-efficient companies that produce and do the marketing themselves. Creating brands becomes imperative if you are to survive.

What do you think Turkey’s perspective should be like concerning brandization “while there is time”? Would you advise foreign investors to invest in Turkey?

To be able to create brands it is important to keep the competition between producers from getting fiercer, and the means for assuming a natural level of cooperation must be sought. There must be opportunities of working together with foreign investors. Professionalism must be achieved in all areas... While trying to create new brands, we must also work on pulling the existing ones into Turkey. Turkey is indeed going to become the “base of brands”. With its supply of young human resources, creative potential, and quick adaptability to circumstances, the Turkish capacity offers a dynamic setting and a great hope for the brands. This country is an ideal choice for long-termed investments with its dynamic and steady structure.

A product that has no brands cannot get beyond being just an artifact; all it has left is a functional presence. Only when it becomes a brand can it have an identity. Courageous companies unafraid of changes can create strong brands. Our export that is ever on the ride upwards, our developing productivity, sense of enterprise, and the capacity of human resources answering not only to production but to administration, come together to point at the fact that it is the right time and place to create brands of world-wide recognition with inconceivably high dynamism. This will bring us to the point that we deserve in the worldwide sector of carpetmaking either by globalization of the existing brands, or by cooperation with the foreign brands who work with our young and dynamic power of production.    

We had started this interview with Shakespeare. Let us remember him again before we close. And in the meanwhile let us not skip Can Yücel. He has great contribution as one of the greatest poets in Turkey in making Shakespeare well-known and widely loved in our country. Many theater plays and sonnets from Shakespeare has been translated into Turkish by Can Yücel. There is only one difference: Instead of exact word-by-word translation, he has nearly re-interpreted and re-written the poems in Turkish. As in the area of poetry, Turkey has the potential to enrich things even further by introducing its own voice among the universal values... That is true especially when the issue is about carpets... Every carpet is a poem, but Turkey is capable of creating a whole epic in carpetmaking.