Yabeela. Branding

Yabeela! A Brand that Entertains Kids of All Ages.

Kids in Bahrain are about to be spoilt rotten with Seef Entertainment’s first, fully-featured entertainment complex aimed at healthy physical play. Yabeela is coming and its going to be loud, very loud.

With an aim to get kids away from the screen and playing together physically, Yabeela is the brand great parents have been waiting for. Its social, physical, safe and most importantly, it is a whole lot of really tiring fun. Your kids will be returned to you happier, healthier and ready for nap time!

Introducing the Yabeela entertainment brand

Yabeela is a new entertainment complex aimed squarely at the kids. Ok, to be honest, its aimed at the parents who want to entertain their kids so they can go shopping safe in the knowledge that their little ones are looked after and will hopefully be returned to them tired out and ready for a nap. The Yabeela entertainment brand really delivers on this, in droves.

Challenges encountered in the Yabeela entertainment brand

Our challenge was how we could create a brand that would cover a wide range of physical play activities and be able to extend itself into new locations and new physical play activities. We needed the Yabeela entertainment brand to have an identity that could cut through the noise and make kids so excited they would want to drop the all-consuming and highly addictive screen time for something more physical and social.

Most parents we spoke to are looking for two things: 1) a break from parenting and 2) to feel good about the decisions they make when it comes to their kids development. Dropping their children in front of a tablet or television gives them space to live but it is not a healthy way for children to spend their time. Ask tech giants like Steve Jobs (RIP); Steve (and many other silicon valley mavens) didn’t allow his kids to play on screens, at all. So this is where the Yabeela entertainment brand makes its play. The brand offers parents peace and quiet as well as peace of mind. The kids get to make as much noise as they want and this is actively encouraged. The play activities encourage social interaction as well as enhancing motor skills and manual dexterity.

Our Strategic Response

The name of the Yabeela entertainment brand is local dialectic slang which a range of meanings for our local Arabic audience. For example, you can use Yabeela to say “yeah sure!” or “lets do this”, both work. The name was an instant hit with the client who found simply saying it brought a cheeky smile to their face.

For a slogan, we usurped ‘laugh out loud’ and coined ‘Play Out Loud’, which kind of says exactly what we want the centre to feel like – a loud and bustling place awash with the noisiest kids playing their hearts out. The tone of voice screams its head off ‘Give your kids more scream time’, ‘The louder they play, the longer they sleep’ and ‘Let them play their hearts out’ all drive home the message that this is a place for happy, tired out kids and thankful, stress-free parents and caregivers.

The colour scheme is a set of boldly opposing tones from which the contrast itself presents a loudness that is unmistakably youthful. Red over Yellow vs Cyan over Blue creates impact and captures attention.

For the type palette, we are using Elephant in Black weight and set in all caps for our super bold headlines. Elephant is a sans-serif typeface designed by Gareth Hague and released through Alias Type Foundry in 1994. The design was inspired by classic wood type grotesques, combined with geometric shapes. We set our headlines at a jaunty angle and are very much off the grid. In support of these super loud and heavy headlines is Sebino Soft in Light with Medium for emphasis.

Results of the Yabeela entertainment brand

Yabeela has been an instant hit with its audience, the first weekend saw crowds of kids enjoying the spectacular attractions at the complex, much to the pleasure of the happy and newly liberated parents. The board are over the moon with the initial reaction the brand received and we are already helping them create new and exciting entertainment brands. The future of play is loud.