DUBAI: A Dubai restaurant has taken an unusual approach to marketing by turning its staff into actors.
Bocasu, a Japanese-inspired dining concept in Al-Quoz, Dubai, has launched “BocaShow,” a 10-episode scripted comedy-drama series on YouTube featuring its own team playing fictionalized versions of themselves. Billed as the first hospitality concept in the UAE to create and produce its own scripted series, the project stars chef Yu Hasegawa, operations manager Izza and other members of the Bocasu team, alongside guest appearances from renowned MMA coach Javier Mendez, UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem and Emirati fighter Hadi Omar Al-Hussaini in Season 1, with Season 2 on the horizon.
For Bocasu founder and CEO Tim Albermann, the idea was born from a desire to move beyond conventional restaurant advertising.
“Because most restaurants focus on traditional marketing tactics, we wanted to do something genuinely different,” he said. “If someone watches the show, we want to be top of mind in a specific way. Not just ‘let’s go to Bocasu,’ but ‘let’s go meet Chef Yu’ or ‘let’s go see Izza.’
“Storytelling is now equally as important as the quality of the food and service itself, and that will only grow. Guests don’t only remember what they ate. They remember how they felt,” he added.
