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◈  Koinz — Audience & character study · KSA

Meet Yazeed —
the face of a market.

يزيد

Koinz didn't ask us for a mascot. They asked us to find the face of a market — the 19-year-old in Al-Khobar who orders, collects and redeems. So we ran the study, then gave it a face.

63%
of Saudis under 30
99%
are online
$8.22B
delivery market ’30
4M
Koinz point-earners
Yazeed — the final illustrated persona for Koinz, a young Saudi man with orange glasses SegmentSaudi Gen Z HomeAl-Khobar · الشرقية BehaviourOrder · Collect · Redeem
01 — The brief

A mascot decorates.
A persona decides.

Koinz — the first social pickup food app in Saudi Arabia and the wider MENA region — was scaling fast into the Kingdom. It didn't need another cute character. It needed a single, human reference point every designer, marketer and product lead could align to: who exactly are we talking to?

Every growth team eventually hits the same wall. The data says the audience is “young, urban, digital, Saudi.” True — and useless the moment you have to write a push notification, choose a food shot, or script a fifteen-second reel. An average has no personality, and you can't design for an average.

So Monzology proposed a different deliverable. Instead of illustrating a brand pet, we would run an audience study and compress its findings into one person — a persona real enough to argue with. Give the numbers a name, a neighbourhood, a football team and a pair of glasses, and the whole company starts designing for him instead of for a spreadsheet.

That person is Yazeed. Every detail — from his age to the colour of his frames — is an argument backed by market evidence. What follows is the evidence first, and the face it produced.

2018
Koinz founded
Crunchbase
1,000+
restaurant outlets across EG · KSA · UAE
MENAbytes
$4.8M
seed led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen
MENAbytes
3
live markets: Egypt · Saudi · UAE
App Store
02 — The market

The Kingdom Yazeed lives in

Four numbers explain why Saudi Arabia is the single most important battleground for a food-loyalty app — and why the customer at the centre of it is almost certainly young.

99%
internet penetration (2024)
CST · Saudi Internet Report 2024
99.4%
go online via a mobile phone
CST 2024
33.6M
smartphone users
Statista, 2024
36.8M
internet users (Jan 2024)
DataReportal · Digital 2024

A young kingdom

Share of the Saudi population by age band — this audience skews dramatically young.
% of population
Under 3030–3435 and over
Source: Saudi GASTAT (2022 census) via The National; “71% under 35” (2024) via Gulf News.

Where his money goes

Saudi online food-ordering & delivery. 2024 & 2030 are cited anchors; the curve is the stated 18.4% CAGR path.
US$ billions
Source: ResearchAndMarkets, Saudi Online Food Ordering & Delivery Report 2025 — US$2.98B (2024) → US$8.22B (2030), 18.42% CAGR.

A market growing 2.8× in six years, where 63% of people are under 30 and 99% are online. The average customer isn't a household — he's a teenager with a phone.

03 — The audience

How his generation eats

Eating out in Saudi Arabia isn't an occasion — it's a default. And for the under-25s, “eating out” increasingly means ordering in.

Eating-out behaviour

Selected Saudi consumer behaviours relevant to a pickup & loyalty app.
% of respondents
Sources: Caterer Middle East (eat-out frequency & ordering-in); Saudi generational dietary study, NCBI/PMC (taste-driven choice).

Loyalty is the lever

Saudi loyalty-programs market — rewards are going app-based, gamified and payment-linked. Exactly Koinz's model.
US$ billions
Source: ResearchAndMarkets / GlobeNewswire — US$1.04B (2023) → US$1.59B (2028), 8.5% CAGR.
01

Peer-led

Gen Z decisions are shaped by friends and feeds far more than by nutrition labels. Points you can share with friends aren't a feature — they're the whole social loop.

02

Taste & price first

60.6% of Gen Z pick food primarily by taste; price is the next filter. A reward that shaves the bill speaks his language directly.

03

Phone-native

He never knew a pre-smartphone Saudi Arabia. Ordering, collecting points and redeeming rewards all happen in one thumb-driven session.

04 — The persona

The whole segment, in one person

We compressed the study into a single individual — specific enough to be useful, representative enough to stand for millions.

Yazeed rendered on a Koinz-purple background
Name
Yazeed  يزيد
Born
2005 · 19 years old
Home
Al-Khobar, Eastern Province  الخبر
Team
Al-Ettifaq (Dammam) — locally, loudly loyal
Device
Smartphone-first, always signed in
Money moment
Orders dinner → collects points → next one's free
Social & sharing Value-hunting Brand-playful Trend-aware Locally rooted

Every attribute is a decision from the study. He's 19 because the market skews under-30. He's from the Eastern Province because Koinz's pickup network runs deep in Khobar–Dammam. His frames are Koinz orange because the persona has to carry the brand on his face.

Grounded, not invented

The research behind the look

Before a single line was drawn, we assembled the reference that makes Yazeed read as authentically Saudi rather than a generic “young man.” His complexion was matched to a documented Arabian skin-tone range — not guessed. His hair, styling and eyewear were pulled from how Eastern-Province Gen Z actually present today.

The result is a persona a Saudi user recognises in half a second: that's someone I know — that could be me.

Reference · authentic complexion range
DAB982
D0A173
BE8E60
D4A67F
DAB094

Documented Arabian skin-tone reference — keeping the illustration true to the audience.

Koinz Orange
Koinz Purple

The brand system Yazeed had to live inside — and wear.

05 — From data to face

Turning a study into a stare

Insight is worthless until it's on the screen. This is the pipeline that carried Yazeed from a demographic brief to a finished, brand-ready character.

Yazeed — final colour render
Yazeed — pencil sketch
Sketch Final

Drag to reveal — the study becoming a face.

Persona spec sheet with Yazeed's biography

Define the brief

The study, distilled to one page: name, age, birthplace and behaviour — the non-negotiables every sketch had to honour.

Refined pencil sketch of Yazeed

Sketch the face

Line explorations to find a face that reads 19, confident and approachable — the register the brand wanted.

Eight hairstyle and feature variations of Yazeed

Explore variants

Eight head studies — hair, styling, features — plus a matched complexion range, pressure-testing which version felt most “Khobar today.”

Final full-colour render of Yazeed

Render & brand

Full-colour finish, Koinz-orange frames locked in — ready to deploy on white, orange or purple across every touchpoint.

Yazeed — realistic register Yazeed — mascot register

Tap to switch — same person, two personalities.

One persona, two registers

Realistic enough to trust, playful enough to love

A persona has to flex. For strategy decks and premium campaigns, Yazeed holds a grounded, semi-realistic finish. For in-app moments, stickers, loyalty celebrations and social — where Koinz is at its most fun — he snaps into a bright, mascot-friendly style.

Same face, same person, same market truth — dialled up or down to match the moment. That range is what lets a single character carry an entire brand.

06 — Why it works

What a face buys a brand

A persona isn't an illustration you file away. It's an operating tool three teams use every day.

Alignment

Product, marketing and content stop arguing about “the user” in the abstract. They ask one question — would Yazeed tap this? — and it settles the debate.

Consistency

Every campaign, notification and food shot now points at the same person. The brand feels coherent because it's literally speaking to one recognisable Saudi face.

Localisation

Yazeed makes an Egypt-born app feel unmistakably Saudi — down to his city and his team — the trust an expanding brand needs in the Kingdom.

07 — The partnership

The scale we designed for

This wasn't a doodle for a startup. Yazeed was built to front a platform already operating at serious scale across the region.

4M
users earning points on Koinz
1,000+
restaurant outlets
$8.22B
KSA delivery market by 2030
3
live markets: EG · KSA · UAE
90 days
brief → full delivery
The Koinz and Monzology teams together at the Koinz office
Signed & delivered

An illustrated-character engagement, start to finish

Commissioned under a formal Illustrated Character Creation agreement in November 2024 and delivered over a 90-day schedule.

How Monzology helped
  • Ran the audience & market study — turned Saudi F&B, demographic and loyalty data into one clear target.
  • Built the data-driven persona — compressed the whole segment into Yazeed: city, behaviour, psychographics.
  • Designed the character system — concept, exploration and a final character in two registers (realistic + mascot).
  • Delivered brand-ready artwork — Koinz-aligned and set to run across app, social, packaging and campaigns.
What this included
  • 01Audience & market study
  • 02Data-driven persona profile
  • 03Character concept & sketches
  • 04Feature & style exploration
  • 05Final full-colour character
  • 06Two registers (realistic + mascot)
  • 07Brand-system alignment
  • 08Touchpoint-ready artwork
Sources & method

Every number is traceable

Market figures come from published third-party research; persona attributes come from Monzology's study and the signed brief. Nothing here is estimated.

Let’s give your market
a face, too.

Book a meeting →
In their words
I worked with Monzology on a highly creative project where we were looking to create a unique creative outlet for our brand. The team is incredibly talented and creative — but what impressed me most was how helpful and strategic they were throughout the process. It's rare to find a partner who brings both creativity and strategic thinking to the table as Monzology does.
Muhammad Sayed Rashad
Muhammad Sayed RashadMarketing Manager · Koinz (2022–2025)