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Nº 05 Hookah & Lifestyle 2022

Cocoyaya UAE

UAE adaptation of a premium shisha brand — visual programming, regional positioning and a social calendar built for a luxury-leaning audience that values both heritage and modern shisha culture.

Role

Account Lead, Regional Brand Adaptation, Social Direction

Year

2022

Location

Dubai, AE

Timeline

5 weeks

Cocoyaya UAE — campaign moment.
Hookah & Lifestyle · Hero Cocoyaya UAE
§ 01 · Challenge

The brief.

Cocoyaya is a premium shisha label built around hookah production and accessories, and the brief was its first regional push into the UAE — a market with high expectations of craftsmanship and a luxury-leaning audience used to brands that get their references right. The hookah category in the region trades on heritage; the contemporary side of it doesn't have many credible voices yet.

The job was to position Cocoyaya as a refined shisha experience for the region without flattening either side of the brand — heritage on one shoulder, modern luxury on the other.

Cocoyaya — Artisan Designs King campaign creative.
Campaign Cocoyaya UAE
Cocoyaya — Touch of Luxury campaign creative with sunburst frame.
Campaign Cocoyaya UAE
Cocoyaya — Royal Series campaign creative on marble podiums.
Campaign Cocoyaya UAE
Cocoyaya — Meet King Brando launch story creative.
Launch Cocoyaya UAE
Cocoyaya — Presenting King Carlos product campaign.
Launch Cocoyaya UAE
§ 02 · Approach

The work.

We built the regional program around visually striking promotional materials that led with craftsmanship and product detail rather than lifestyle imagery. Each campaign tile foregrounded the intricate work in the hookahs themselves — the inlay, the metalwork, the silhouette — so the brand argued for its own quality without a marketing claim doing the lifting.

We considered a lifestyle-photography push to chase a younger Dubai audience but led with craftsmanship-on-product instead — the regional buyer had already seen lifestyle shisha photography from every other label and would only stop on detail. Social campaigns and the broader digital content set were planned in beats that moved between the heritage side of the brand and the contemporary side, never on the same post but always inside the same calendar. Account work covered the regional creative kit, the social calendar and the on-property review with the operator.

Cocoyaya — café-side lifestyle photography.
Lifestyle Cocoyaya UAE
§ 03 · Outcome
“I led the regional launch with craftsmanship-on-product over lifestyle imagery — inlay, metalwork and silhouette as the hero, not a venue shot — because the UAE audience had already seen lifestyle shisha from every other label and would only stop on detail. The brand entered the region with one consistent voice across roughly 5 weeks of digital-and-retail rollout, the campaign tiles attracted an audience that valued both heritage and modern luxury, and the operator carried the visual program into evergreen rotation as Cocoyaya scaled across the region. ”
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