Closed doors
A young digital agency, ODB, knocks on the doors of Douala’s businesses to talk to them about the web. The doors stay shut. We learn a lesson for life: you can’t treat a patient who doesn’t know they’re ill.
Une agence au cœur des gens.
We were born in Douala, between closed doors, packed evenings and a great many coffees. Today, mystiQ is a 360 communications agency, and a house surrounded by its Kases. This is our story.
Our purpose
Reaching people where they recognise themselves.
Everyone carries a touch of mystique within: a pride, a memory, a way of being in the world. That is where real decisions are made. Far more than in front of a price tag.
Our job is to bring your brand there. To make sure your audiences recognise themselves in it, choose it, and talk about it to those around them. Our name has said so since 2020.
From strategy to events, we take charge of your communications. We start from your problem, never from a catalogue. And we train your teams, so that you stay in control of your story.
Our promise, since our first presentations in 2021: to treat your project as if it could save the world.
Our story
Twelve years in the field, since 2014.
Closed doors, packed evenings, changing names. And one wish that has never moved: bringing people together, listening to them, telling their stories.
Douala’s web community comes together
ODB is registered. The first Digital Thursday, the digital meet-up created by our founder, brings together the people who build the web in Douala.
La Nuit du Web
We organise the first edition of La Nuit du Web, an evening that honours the people who make the Cameroonian web.
OSIH 2018
Presidential campaign: a digital team led by our founder, before the company was incorporated.
mystiQ is born
AGENCE MYSTIQ SARL is registered on 24 June in Douala. In the logo, the Q draws a cup of coffee seen from above. Then a heart.
Stop Covid Cameroon
Alongside the Ministry of Health, Johns Hopkins University and Breakthrough Action: raising awareness, without giving in to fear.
Une agence au cœur des gens
We write it out in full, on our business cards and in our presentations. The phrase will never leave us.
Yellow, Jangolo Farm, Ease Travel
Yellow, in a programme funded by the European Union. Jangolo Farm, in a programme funded by GIZ. The launch of Ease Flight for Ease Travel. The agency grows with its clients.
mystiK Studio
We create mystiK Studio to make our films, our content and our own stories.
The house put in order
mystiQ becomes the main brand again: a 360 communications agency and parent house, surrounded by its Kases. From the Q to the Ks.
The years of doubt
We are still here.
There were hard years. The names changed: Mystic ODB, then Mystic. There were struggles, doubts, fresh starts.
We stayed. Because the lesson of 2014 still held: you can’t treat a patient who doesn’t know they’re ill. So we kept explaining, training, bringing people together. That is where our tenacity comes from.
Our values
Four values, a house still standing.
Everyone has words on a wall. Ours are working habits. Here is what they change for you, in practice.
01
Start from people
Before we talk about your brand, we talk about the people it wants to reach: what they live through, how they speak, what makes them laugh. Your brand comes next, and it lands in the right place.
- Every assignment begins with time spent listening: interviews, fieldwork, reading online conversations.
- When the project allows, we test messages with people from the target audience before rolling them out widely.
- In our recommendations, your audience has a face, a city and habits, not just an age bracket.
Speaking for people, deciding from behind a desk, or forcing on them a recipe from somewhere else.
02
Tell it right
Right means true, and well told. We tell what is true, in the codes of those who are listening. African and contemporary, without folklore and without copying from elsewhere.
- No figure, no reference, no testimonial that we cannot prove.
- We look for our references in the lives of your audiences (the street, the market, the music, the language) before looking at what is done elsewhere.
- Camfranglais, Pidgin or a local language come into a campaign when they serve the message, never to look exotic.
Embellishing, exaggerating, or dressing Africa up as a backdrop. Nor rejecting on principle what comes from elsewhere.
03
See it through
We treat every project as if it could save the world. And we stay, even when it is hard. Especially when it is hard.
- One point of contact who knows your file, from the first coffee to the final review.
- We tell you straight away what can and cannot be done, within your timeline and your budget. When a brief starts from a wrong assumption, we say so, and we suggest another route.
- Every assignment ends with a written review: what worked, what worked less well, what we would do differently.
Saying yes to everything, or promising what is beyond our control.
04
Pass it on
What we know, we share. A team that understands its audiences and its tools makes better decisions, with or without us.
- We explain our choices in plain words, so that your teams can defend them without us.
- We train your teams on the tools we put in place.
- We publish our ideas (articles, guides, workshops) and we showcase those who practise the trade.
Keeping our methods secret to make the client dependent, or talking in acronyms to impress.
Our method
Understand before we create.
Our way of working has a scholarly name: cultural intelligence. The idea is simple. Before speaking to your audiences, we learn their language. Not just French, English or Camfranglais: their expressions, their rituals, their references, everything they understand without anyone needing to explain it.
You will not find it as an add-on in a quote. It guides every one of our projects, in five stages: the coffee, understand, decide, create and distribute, measure and pass on.
Sometimes it leads to a campaign with an artist. Sometimes to a single word changed on a poster. Always to better-informed decisions.
From the Q to the Ks
One house, three Kases, a single door.
Kase, from the French “case”, a home: like the huts of a family compound, set around the main house. And a nod to mystiK Studio’s comic-strip panels, also called cases in French. Each has its own craft. All share the same story.
The house’s content studio. It makes the films, videos and content for our assignments, and it is developing its own stories: TEMPO, an online media outlet, Sita au Kwatt, an animated series, and Afro content channels. Consulting opens the door, the studio does the making.
Histoire, raconte.
A talent label between Africa and the United States. Because a voice born in Douala deserves to be heard far beyond it.
Emotions find their sound.
The Kase for training and transforming people and teams. Today, training courses are offered and invoiced by mystiQ.
Talent takes its place.
The parent house. A 360 communications agency: strategy, creative, digital, media, press, events, research and training. It is the one that welcomes you, signs your contract and answers for everything, even when its Kases are involved.
Une agence au cœur des gens.
IA Connect Africa
IA Connect Africa, a mystiQ initiative, is preparing its first pan-African forum on artificial intelligence in Cotonou. First edition in 2027. The forum keeps its name and its own identity.
African professionals, for African decision-makers, on African issues.
One contract, one invoice: everything is in the name of AGENCE MYSTIQ SARL, trading as mystiQ, even when mystiK Studio, mystiK Music or mystiK Campus are involved.
The founder
A founder on every assignment.
Jean Pierre BOEP founded mystiQ. On every assignment, he is there, from the first coffee to the final review. Around him, a network of associate experts, chosen for your project, not to fill an organisation chart.
With him, you will hear the truth about timelines, budgets and results from the very first meeting. It is sometimes uncomfortable. It is always useful.
I am sure robots will conquer the world… but only after they have learnt to cook a good ndolè.
Jean Pierre BOEP, founder of mystiQ, 2024
Our commitments
What we owe you.
Eight commitments, in black and white. Remind us of them whenever you like.
- One contract and one invoice, in the name of AGENCE MYSTIQ SARL, trading as mystiQ, even when our Kases are involved.
- The founder committed to every assignment, surrounded by associate experts chosen for your project.
- One point of contact who knows your file, from the first coffee to the final review.
- The truth about timelines, budgets and results, from the very first meeting.
- Clear, fixed-price quotes.
- Indicators set with you at the start, and a written review that goes back over them, including what did not work.
- No figure, no reference that we cannot prove.
- If your project and budget call for it, rapid deployment across Central and West Africa, with local partners.
Let’s talk
Let’s grab a coffee.
Tell us about your project. We listen first, really listen. Then we tell you honestly what is possible, within your timeline and your budget. The rest we build together.
maison@agencemystiQ.comDouala (Kotto), Cameroon