Beit Misk - Intro to Mukhtar
Welcoming Mayor

Totally Libnani. A Lebanese restaurant, Beit Misk deliciously mixes local Saudi preferences with the perfect setting and great cuisine with unique twists and authentic flavors. Launched in 2015 in Dammam, it soon opened more branches in Al Hassa and Dahran. Given their success, Beit Misk wanted cook something new: a mascot that represents the brand and resonates with people.

  • Hospitality Development Group
  • Food & Beverage
  • Saudi Arabia
Capabilities:
Brand Guardianship, Social Media, Creative Campaign, Mascot Creation

We assisted in creating the persona of the character and the communication strategy for introducing the character. Because Beit Misk is inspired by an old Lebanese village, and the entire communication of the restaurant was Lebanese, we wanted to keep things typically Lebanese. We had to keep in mind Saudi cultural perceptions too. Our studied recommendation was to create a story that linked the town to the restaurant via the character of the Mayor. Aka “the Mukhtar”. Every Lebanese town has that one person they look up to and trust. A well respected figure who is part of Lebanese culture and is on a mission to serve the people.

This sparked the creation of a story around the Mukhtar persona. It linked him to the restaurant and made him Beit Misk’s official mascot. An engaging multi-channel campaign introduced the Mukhtar alongside a secondary character, his side-kick, Abou Riad. The campaign kicked off as an offline and online teasing campaign. The revealer went on to introduce the mukhtar in a fun animated video that went viral. All this had such impact that the tagline for this campaign was later adopted as the main restaurant official tagline: “Libnani 3al ousoul wel jaow cool.” The memorable tagline had a play on words since cool was spelled like “eat” in Arabic. After developing the look of the mukhtar and Abou Riad, we knew we had to further brand them with their own unique voices and accents. After several auditions, we found the ideal voices to reflect both personas and today their voices have become a Beit Misk trademark given the success.