past work: beije
2020 - 2023
co-founder
We founded beije in 2020, amidst the pandemic. My main areas of focus as co-founder were brand, content (strategy & execution), customer relations, and talent.
Over a span of 3.5 years, beije became one of the top lovemarks in Turkey, a vocal and outspoken brand about issues surrounding the experience of being a young woman in Turkey in the 21st century (starting from menstruation and branching out to topics such as gender equality, women’s rights, among others. We amassed an incredible community around our social media presence, as well as through our guerilla marketing efforts, offline events, and presence on college campuses.
We led an incredibly transparent, user-friendly and solutions-oriented customer communication effort, and over time, developed a highly loyal customer base (who quite often sent us love letters!), who have helped us grow via word of mouth.
socıal medıa presence
Instagram page: @beijewomen, 292K followers (as of 09/23)
YouTube channel: @beijewomen, 3K followers, multiple viral videos such as this one where I walked around parts of Istanbul with a fake blood stain on my shorts and we recorded people’s reactions.
Spotify account: @beijewomen, 2K followers
We led a very active LinkedIn presence (7K followers, and counting), positioning our LinkedIn page as a resource for young professionals (esp. women) to learn and share about workplace and career related issues.
on the streets
We ran multiple offline campaigns, intended to provoke reactions from passersby. The Turkish word for periods is ‘regl’, however almost always, euphemisms are used instead. We decided to run a simple, yet catchy campaign by simply asking ‘are you on your period?’ and only omitting a single letter from the word, so people could activate their imagination and complete the word in their minds.
The tampon ads (tampons are another category of taboo products, due the issue of virginity) are twofold; one simply shows a bunch of tampons swimming in a pool, with a caption that reads ‘uninterrupted vacation’ (the main benefit of using tampons over pads, especially during the summer, is being able to go in the water). The second ad features a tanning tampon on a floatie, and features a colloquial saying that translates to; ‘The water’s really nice, why don’t you join me?’
The final poster design featured multiple sets of two adjacent statements; ‘If you’re afraid to dress as you wish’ / ‘If you keep asking ‘I wonder what they’d say’’+ ‘Don’t settle. Don’t ignore it. Don’t get used to it.’
All of the posters went viral on social media :)
customer engagement
Mentioned up top, we often get extended DMs, emails and comments on our page thanking us for our package or customer experience, content or for simply creating the space to talk about issues that had long been taboo in Turkey (not to mention, not addressed or talked about by any of the major menstrual hygiene companies dominating the market).
