Our friends at JO Bedu a clothing company founded in 2007 by two young entrepreneurs Tamer AlMasri and Michael Makdah from Jordan with the mission of promoting Arab pop culture using art, humor, silliness, creativity, and style. The decision was made to broadcast these messages on t-shirts designed by Arabs, a lot of their T-shirt designs are actually crowdsourced, they use social media networks to run competitions for new T-shirt designs and with the wining designer getting a piece of the pie if the sales of the shirt were over a certain percentage. Their slogan is “Join the Tribe” and they aim to invite everyone from the MENA region to join them in promoting Arab culture and identity. It is sort of like a community getting people involved in the creative process, showcasing Arab creativity, and having fun which also extends to their social media activities as well.
Thier latest release and the reason for this post is “Metwatter” (for males) and “Metwatreh” (for females) uses a clever Arabic play on words for Twitter that translates to super anxious. Below are images of the shirt:
Now in the last 3 years these guys have been working hard to get where they are and it all started out from selling shirts at bazars and actually making home deliveries. Other than their persistence and good business sense they have had good social media presence and online store which is updated regularly. All in all I think what Jo Bedu have done in the past couple of years is a good case study on how to leverage social media in the MENA region and how to create a good brand as well as brand ambasadors.