# An Idea Has a Tone > This article summarizes Mohammed Al-Arfaj's (founder of MayoTone) workshop on transforming simple client briefs into memorable musical commercials through smart questioning and cultural inspiration like 'Al-Niqsa'. ## Topics - Marketing & Advertising - Creative Direction - Music & Branding ## Keywords An Idea Has a Tone, Mohammed Al-Arfaj, MayoTone, musical commercials, sonic branding, creative agency workflow, Saudi National Day campaigns, advertising inspiration ## FAQ ### What does "An Idea Has a Tone" mean in creative work? It refers to how creative concepts and simple two-line requests can be translated into engaging, memorable musical commercials and sonic identities, as explained by MayoTone founder Mohammed Al-Arfaj. ### Why is an unclear client brief considered normal in the creative industry? Because clients usually approach creative agencies seeking solutions without a fully detailed marketing plan. The creative's role is to guide them and shape the right concept without overwhelming them with questions. ### How was the National Day commercial idea conceived in the MayoTone workshop? The authentic Saudi custom of "Al-Niqsa" (sharing a portion of what you buy or cook with others), which was seamlessly connected to delivery and gifting services in a non-intrusive way. ## Tags Creativity, Musical Commercials, Marketing, Content Creation ## Source URL: https://hazz.studio/blog/ideas-tone/2026-09-15 Published: 2026-09-15 Updated: 2026-09-15 Language: English (machine-translated from Arabic) Other language: https://hazz.studio/blog/ideas-tone/llms.txt?lang=ar Publisher: HAZZ STUDIO (https://hazz.studio) ## Full article ## An Idea Has a Tone: How Does a Two-Line Request Turn into a Song People Hum? The summary of the workshop by Mohammed Al-Arfaj, founder and executive creative director of "MayoTone", at Dar Al-Qadisiyyah Imagine you are at work, and your coffee is still hot. Your manager walks in and says: "The client wants a piece of work for National Day, celebrating Saudi Arabia and its people, and connecting them to the people." That’s it. Two lines. No clear budget, no specific target audience, not even a hint of what’s on their mind. Welcome to creative reality. This is precisely what Mohammed Al-Arfaj and his team experienced at "MayoTone", a creative house that brings together music, design, and culture, producing musical commercials and sonic identities. In a workshop titled "An Idea Has a Tone," he took us behind the scenes of the project step by step: from the first two lines to a 90-second commercial that reached the people and stayed in their memory. Fasten your seatbelt; the journey is fun. ## First: The Client Doesn't Know What They Want... and That's Normal The first lesson Mohammed stated frankly: most clients don’t come to you with a full marketing department and a detailed plan. The client usually came to you because they see you as a creative company, and their state of mind says: "Save me, I want to launch in the market in the upcoming season." In this example, the client is a food and gift delivery app. And here comes a golden advice: don’t overwhelm the client with questions in the first step. Mohammed cited the story of the Children of Israel and the cow; the more questions asked about its type and color, the harder it became for them. The client told you "I want a piece of work for National Day"? Excellent. Now it’s your role to tell them how it should be. And why does Mohammed use the "client argument" even with independent content creators? Because if you grow up one day and have your company or get hired at an agency, you won't build your ideas based on your mood. There will always be someone governing you. Learn the skill from now on. ## Good Questions = Good Ideas The rule at "MayoTone" is simple: the quality of your idea is proportional to the quality of your questions. Among the questions the team asks themselves: - Who is the audience we are speaking to? Know your client well. Imagine creating a loud youth song for a bank whose majority of customers are retirees. The result? A respectable moral slap from the client. - What do we want them to remember or feel? The viewer will likely see the commercial once, like a new restaurant you try for the first time: either you return to it fifty times a year, or that time is the last. - How do we want the client to appear? This is the most dangerous question. If you don't answer it correctly, you have lost the idea and lost the client with it. ## "Al-Niqsa": The Idea That Was Right in Front of Us All Along The team thought and thought: what connects food and gift delivery services with National Day, without repeating what gets done every year? The answer came from an authentic Saudi custom: Al-Niqsa (sharing a portion of what you buy or cook with others). It is when you taste something you like and say: "By God, I must send some to so-and-so." A custom present in most regions of the Kingdom since the days of mud houses, passing through the generation of the eighties and nineties, and until today. The medium changed, but the intention remains the same: affection and love. Notice how we Saudis behave after any pleasant experience. Delicious food? A beautiful gathering? The first thing that crosses your mind: "I wish so-and-so were with us." We love sharing good things, and our happy moments feel incomplete until we share them. Thus, the idea became: celebrating the homeland through memories of giving across its generations. And the best part is it brings together the entire target segment, from 18 to 45 years old, under a single feeling that everyone knows. And where is the client in all of this? They are simply the modern extension of this custom. Their presence is soft, non-commercial, and indirect. And this is precisely where the cleverness of the creator shows: gripping the client's product without it looking like a pure ad that lost its soul. ## Why a Song? Because Rhythm Makes Everything Easier Mohammed confesses that tying everything to rhythm started with him "lazily"! Because editing to rhythm is literally mathematics: you know when to cut and when to end. But the surprise is that over time, you discover through this "lazy" method new creative approaches no one else thought of. ## Creators Are Sensitive... So Prepare Your Filters When you turn an idea into a song, you enter a world where everyone is sensitive: the poet, the composer, the singer, the violinist, then the director and the lighting manager. Everyone is charged and stressed, and this is the nature of the environment. Imagine the poet wrote the poem and then you come and tell him: "Change this word, this meaning doesn't suit our visual direction." Very difficult. The solution? Filters. A clear and precise brief for every person in the process: for the poet, the composer, the arranger. And the more filters you have, the better the result. And here is a sentence worth hanging on the wall: "Don't say I'm creative, I'm crazy, nobody understands me. If you are truly a creative, your first act of creation is being creative in communicating your idea." ## References and Visual Nourishment Are the Creator's Soldiers Nourish yourself with movies, series, games, books, and novels. Mohammed warns against what he calls "arrogance toward the market" or "ignorance": entering the industry while the last movie you watched was from 2009. You must stay updated step by step, otherwise your mindset remains stuck there. ## Outpace the Poet with Your Catchphrase Turning an ordinary idea into a sung idea is based on three elements: meaning (what we want to say), feeling (what we want people to feel), and the catchphrase. The better you nail the catchphrase, the more successful the work is. In this project, the poet didn't write the campaign phrase. The creative team itself decided the campaign should be "Helwah wa ihlawwat ziyadah" (Sweet and got even sweeter), and then it was handed over to the poet to build upon. And the funny thing is the word itself can be said in an enthusiastic, affectionate, or playful tone. Which one do we choose? The answer is not "What do we want?", but rather "What does the client want?" If you went with an enthusiastic tone for a formal bank, they would say: "My customers are not teenagers." And the client here was closer to an affectionate tone, targeting a group that loves specific details, so the choice was: the affectionate tone. ## Five Weeks... for a Single Line Here the truth appears that no one from outside the field sees. The opening verse was successful from the start. But the continuation of the lyrics? One version came, then the next, then the next. All of them were poetically beautiful, and the team rejected them all. Why? Because the filters said the words would turn into scenes. So when the poet wrote, for example, about planting and harvesting, the question was: will we shoot a farm? No, the story takes place in a warm home presenting the idea of Al-Niqsa. Until the line came speaking of generosity and kindness as a "habit" in us since God created us. Only then did the team say: We agree. Mohammed says he narrated it to us in five seconds, but it took five weeks: every attempt takes two days, because the poet needs his time, along with spending, waiting, and... an urgent client. ## The Poet Is the First Director One of the workshop's finest ideas: in musical commercial production, the first treatment comes from the poet, not the director. Because the poet ultimately writes a visual description. Mohammed cited Prince Badr bin Abdulmohsin, may God have mercy on him, who used to write a cinematic scene you could imagine just by hearing it. And a single word, "habit," opened up the whole story: generosity has been a habit for a long time, from mud houses, evolving with us in the seventies, eighties, and nineties until today. So why not tell the story through these eras? And here came the "emergency call" to the composer: "Wherever you've reached, stop! Every couplet must represent an era." ## The Exercise "Hear the Image" Do you remember hundreds of old music videos? Most people don't remember two of them. The reason was that the director was in one valley and the song in another. Therefore, the MayoTone team applied an exercise with every new employee: they play a musical ad they haven't seen before, with the sound muted. Then they ask them: What do you think the rhythm is? Is the singer's voice deep or soft? What is the speed of the work? If the connection between sound and image is correct, the answers will mostly be right. And if not, things will get lost. It is also the first thing the team does with any video version: mute the sound, and see if the visual rhythm is the same one you imagined. ## The Demo: A Journey Through Time Without a Single Word Why do we need a demo in the first place? Because you haven't been paid yet, you don't have a production budget, and you're not sure if the client will agree. So you convey a small part of the idea at the lowest cost, and your cleverness lies in taking the client into your imagination to where the work will go. And many projects are rejected because of the demo! Some fun details here: - The Maqam (Scale): The team chose the Kurd maqam, because it is one of the closest scales to various segments of Saudi society across different ages. The melody was composed by Mr. Salah Al-Hamlan. - The Arrangement: With every era, the instruments and rhythm change. It starts with a folkloric rhythm and old instruments, then the vibes of the eighties with their distinctive sounds, then the sounds of the nineties, leading to the guitar and modern digital sounds. A complete journey whose scenes you imagine without seeing a thing. - The Arranger: An ordinary music arranger wasn't enough; the project needed a theatrical arranger skilled in transitioning between eras. So the choice fell on Rabie Al-Sidaoui, who has long experience in musical commercials and plays in Kuwait. - The Demo Surprise: An enthusiastic little girl who loves to sing was told: "If you can hold the tune, come record with us." Her reward? She entered the choir. Mohammed praises her performance. ## The Battle of Voice Selection The song is ready, and now the question: who performs it? Mohammed compares it to a beautiful flower: the choice of the vase either increases its beauty or makes it look like flowers wrapped in a newspaper. Inside the team, there were two opinions: a professional singer who gives the lyrics and melody their full right, or an influential personality similar to the client, even if they aren't the best voice or haven't sung before. The second opinion won, because what use is a wonderful song that doesn't reach the target segment? Why a Female Voice? When an attendee asked, the answer was surprising: the team reviewed the client's database and found that 80% of their customers are women. So it was necessary for the face to be female, resembling them. Not the current marketing manager's taste, because that might change after a few months. What is meant is the brand's DNA: review the history of its ads, who it collaborates with, and the type of casting it prefers. A wrong choice here could cost companies millions. So the choice fell on actress Lama Al-Kanani: high popularity among adults and children, and a calm personality with tenderness and composure. A small challenge remained: she doesn't sing! The solution was a mini-course: a session with the composer every couple of days for two weeks, whose goal wasn't emotion or vocal range, but simply holding the tune correctly. ## And What About Artificial Intelligence? Mohammed's beautiful answer: the problem with AI-made songs is that they don't make mistakes. And the whole beauty of singing is in the "mistake": the vocal ornaments, the tremor in the voice, the little crack that never repeats. You ask an artist to repeat a special segment, and they will never do it in the exact same way. ## A Director Who Said: "This Doesn't Look Like Me" Don't rely too much on the director no matter how experienced they are, as not every director understands the sonic process. When the team contacted director Majid Al-Eisa, known for fast rhythm and comedic style, he apologized immediately! He said the work is beautiful, but it doesn't look like him, as it contains warmth, affection, and charm. They gave him time, then returned to him. He accepted the challenge, entered the circle of the creative process, and delivered something very close to what was in the team's mind. ## Even the Font Has a Tone To design the campaign font, the team reviewed the client's history in previous seasons and occasions, gathered references, and experimented until they reached a result embodying "charm" and "excess": letters stretched as much as possible, because generosity always loves something extra. An important lesson: Don't give the client options! Mohammed fights the habit of presenting "option one, two, and three." Because the ending is almost guaranteed: "I want option one with a quarter of option three," and out comes a distorted cocktail that looks like nothing. The client came to you because they don't know, so you define it, and modify it with them. How to Sell the Idea? Say Less The known rule among every smart salesperson: if the customer is convinced, shut up! Don't tell them "and look at this too." Every word counts against you. So summarize the idea in a few words: - The idea: celebrating the homeland through memories of giving across the years. - The story: temporal transitions reflecting continuous and deeply rooted giving in society. - The client's role: facilitating the continuation of Al-Niqsa, still having a role in one of our oldest customs. - The format: a 90-second work targeting Saudi men and women from 18 to 40 years old. Then let the client hear the demo and see the visual concept and storyboard, which AI helps a lot with nowadays. ## The Extra Touches After Proving the Idea When the core idea settles, the extra touches begin: - Flowers: intensive presence of flowers in the work, to say that gifting flowers is a deeply rooted habit in us and not an intrusive idea. - The cake: a cake specially designed for the commercial, which the team liked so much they suggested making it part of the campaign. - The final table: instead of filling it with random sweets, they involved productive families and stores available on the app. - The phone: a passing glimpse of one of the characters, past the middle of the commercial, without taking over the scene. ## Surprises on Shooting Day The shooting was only for one day. During a break, an unexpected request came from Lama Al-Kanani: her little daughter's face had never been seen by anyone before, and the audience was demanding she show her, so she agreed to appear for the first time in this national work. When the client was informed, he was overwhelmed with joy. And the second request was stranger: after shooting ended, Lama asked to re-record her entire voiceover, because she felt her vocal performance was below the level of the work. The result? A recording 70 to 80% better than the first one, to the point that the team didn't keep the first version at all. ## From the Attendees' Questions How long did the project take? Around 60 days. But execution itself is fast: a recording day, arrangement in 8 to 12 hours, and one shooting day. What takes time is the preparation: filters, studying, choices, and treatment. Did the client like it? The true mark of satisfaction is when the client comes to you on the next occasion themselves and says: "I want to work with you again." ## Conclusion: Every Idea Is a Sunset If you want the whole journey in lines: - The brief comes to you, or you set your goal yourself as a content creator. - The idea is born from questions: the more wonderful your questions, the more wonderful your idea. - You set filters and choose the general mood. - You determine the tone from human observation. - You choose your team: poet, composer, arranger, performer. - You sell the idea to the client in a few words, and get their approval. - You execute... and don't exceed the budget! Mohammed concluded with a simile worth keeping with you: all of God's creation is creative, but sunset to him is the daily creative process. No sunset resembles yesterday's sunset; and so are ideas. The real exception is the tone with which you present it.