President Shin Dong-wook of Dong-A Pharmaceutical.

Dong-A Pharmaceutical Co. has such business portfolios as over-the-counter drugs, non-drug products and health foods. The company employs 130-odd salesmen who have organizational and filed management capabilities corresponding to the company’s decades-long history. Dong-A Pharmaceutical supplies some 70 over-the-counter drugs to about 20,000 drugstores across the nation. Sanitary aids, other non-drug products and health foods are also made available via large-scale discount stores and convenience stores across the nation. 

Dong-A Pharmaceutical has a separate Route Sales System employing 150 salesmen equipped with some 70 vehicles to market the company’s flagship product, Bacchus.

In a ceremony to launch the 2015 business year early this year, Dong-a Socio Holdings Group, former Dong-A Pharmaceutical Group, called for each subsidiary to translate their ideas into action and cultivate profitable businesses. In this regard, Dong-A Pharmaceutical designed this year as the first in which it will lay a solid foundation to create growth momentum. It has set corporate culture innovation as its top priority. 

A major action plan calls for the establishment of a corporate culture to foster a better work environment; reinforcement of responsible management; promoting esprit de corps; dedication to the company through bottom-up communication; diversifying and speeding up of products; and the re-establishment of R&D strategies through dual research tasks. 

Dong-A Pharmaceutical plans to tweak its product portfolio as part of a marketing strategy to nurture mega-products and expand consumers’ survey and market survey functions to work out systematic brand strategies. The company also plans to secure manpower exclusively charged with the development of trend products and household items, and promote the development of new products to secure market leadership. 

The company plans to ramp up interactive communications with customers with a focus on below-the-line activities via the Internet, SNS and experience events rather than such above-the-line media as TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. 

Dong-A Pharmaceutical’s Cash Cow Brand: Baccus

Dong-A Pharmaceutical’s conventional mainstay product is the Baccus brand. Baccus, made of taurine and other energy ingredients, has proved to be effective in overcoming fatigue. The brand is Dong-A Pharmaceutical’s cash cow and chalked up more than 180 billion won in sales in Korea last year.

The company also sells popular products such as the cold drug Panpilin; the newly-released indigestion treatment drug Venachio; the wound treating drug Dodanagel; the mouth cleaning agent Gagrin; the hang-over drink Morning Care; the hair-dying agent Bigen Crimton; and the health promotion food Dongchung Ilgi. 

The company has high hopes on functional shampoos, conditioners and essence products such as Hairich, effective for the prevention of hair loss and re-growing hair.

Dong-A Pharmaceutical’s cash cow brand ‘Baccus.’ (Photos:Dong-A Pharmaceutical)