Lahma w Fahma

A Little More Flavor: Enhancing a Riyadh Street-Food Dining Experience Online

Project Type
Digital Marketing

Location
Saudi Arabia

Industry
F&B

Project Link

Challenge

In recent years, the street food scene in KSA has been booming. With food trucks appearing on every corner, flocks of foodies are trying out all the new fads, and raving about them online. The power of the digital word is quite emphasized in the dining industry, especially with street food where instagrammable moments are just waiting to happen. Lahma w Fahma one of Riyadh’s street food style restaurants, sought out Blue Hat to enhance their online presence. The concept offers street food from different cities around the world: USA, Egypt, India all the way to Japan.

Intervention

We started out with an internal reflection with the client in order to understand their vision and where they would like to take the brand. After conducting the workshop, we began the analytical research phase. We started with trend spotting in order to explore the new fads in the street food scene, and specifically on social media, since it was a communication design strategy.

We also conducted research on case studies where we tackled lessons and accumulated learning from them. For our ethnographic research, we sent out a mystery shopper to audit the customer journey to be able to identify any pain pints from a subjective point of view. Following that we conducted a competitor scan where we identified the position of other key players with respect to Lahma w Fahma.

After finalizing the research we set out our strategic objectives for the brand which included establishing Lahma w Fahma as one of the leading casual dining restaurants in Riyadh that offers a unique street food experience drawn from different international cuisines. Our aims were building brand awareness to Lahma w Fahma’s unique concept through interesting captions, stories and campaigns. We also wanted to appeal to a young generation that appreciates a quirky branding, fun setting, and great street food through visually appealing photos, stories, and videos. Finally, engaging with our customers and followers in a two-way conversation is crucial to build brand loyalty and ultimately increase footfall to the restaurant through content, collaborations, and campaigns.

Results

We positioned Lahma w Fahma as the “Jester” personality focusing on its attributes of discovery, originality, connection, and playfulness. Through these notions we wanted to perpetuate the brand’s core DNA through displaying facts like how Lahma w Fahma pushes customers to indulge in new experiences and try new flavors drawn from different cuisines.

This specific restaurant has the ability to think outside the box, as it’s a unique brand, it’s not afraid to stand out (campaigns), and it fills that gap in the market. Lahma w Fahma is to become the hub and go-to-destination for young foodies to hang out, chill, and share good quality comfort food derived from different countries. All while, injecting a dose of wittiness, color, and positivity onto its space and offerings.

We also classified its target personas and started designing the strategy on how to address them. We started out with the anatomy guidelines and connotations, where we emphasized the flexible grid, human elements, and the vibrant colors. The visuals and motifs also had to be fun, appetizing, dramatic, contain storytelling, have unique angles, and doodles to maintain the jester aspect. We divided their online presence into different segments, and especially on Instagram where we worked on every last detail until the highlighted story titles.

Along with our designers, we also decided on the primary and secondary colors which will dictate the content being posted online. The themes were also set for the content, and they included notions like community, food display, concept, ambiance, and updates. We set the tone of voice of Lahma w Fahma as joyful, playful and witty. We created sample posts and moderation guidelines for community management to ensure a two-way communication with the followers.