How Will AI Affect Brand Collaboration? The Wonka Experiment
Putting Learnings From The London AI Summit Into Action
As a Marketing Manager at Collaborate, attending the London AI Summit in June was an eye-opening journey into the future. The summit showcased cutting-edge technologies and their potential impact on various industries.
However, for me, the most fascinating revelation was how AI will revolutionise the experiential industry and reshape the way brands connect with their audiences.
The context behind AI (the bit I assume you already know) – The immediate changes that the experiential industry faces are nothing short of transformative. AI-powered solutions are already enhancing personalisation, interactivity, and engagement, allowing brands to create immersive experiences like never before. From chatbots and virtual assistants to facial recognition and augmented reality, AI is becoming the backbone of experiential marketing campaigns.
One of the key takeaways from the summit was the importance of wording and prompts in shaping the AI-driven experiences.
So, I decided to conduct an experiment…what would a brand collaboration look like between the eagerly anticipated new Willy Wonka movie (‘Wonka’), and renowned chocolate brand Hotel Chocolat?
By carefully crafting my requests to MidJourney and analysing them, I was able to tap into its creative potential as a tool to generate exciting ideas for this collaboration – discovering the impact of the prompt words I used.
Next, I set my objective; create a seamless fusion of the Willy Wonka universe and Hotel Chocolat in brand activation form. The result was a series of tangible brand assets, from limited edition chocolate collections to Willy Wonka-themed gifts sets, all designed to capture the imagination of chocolate lovers and film enthusiasts alike.
Here’s how it worked…
The Experiment:
Use Midjourney to bring to life my vision of a brand collab between Willy Wonka x Hotel Chocolat.
Note: I’m not looking for – or expecting – the finished article, but just some stimuli to help convey the idea to my senior team and creative department.
Version 1: The First Prompt
Here I am just testing the water with MidJourney, seeing what parts of my prompts it is sticking to and which it is missing.
“/imagine a willy wonka and hotel chocolat brand collaboration”
Version 2: The V5 Test
Here I included in the ‘V5’ aspect into the prompt. This was to see how the new update ‘version 5’ of MidJourney affected the image.
I am still just experimenting here and this new V5 prompt wanted to focus too heavily on the individual rather than the wider design.
“/imagine a willy wonka and hotel chocolat brand collaboration - V5”
Version 3: The Assets
Here I wanted to explore how the V5 update would affect a more direct prompt related to the product itself.
“/imagine a set of 3 chocolate bars from hotel chocolat that are in collaboration with the new release of the Willy Wonka theme. They are on a purple table and must appear to be high end. Luxury. British style.”
Version 4: The Asset Prompt Change
I wanted to be much more direct with the prompt here, I wasn’t getting the results that allowed for both the elements to come through.
The more direct language produced a new development with the image on the top left that was more aligned to what I was thinking.
“/imagine Chocolate bars, brand collaboration between Hotel Chocolat and Willy Wonka. Purple. Luxury. Willy Wonka on cover. V5”
Version 5: The Box
Here I wanted to start exploring how a more direct product could be incorporated, using the main characters iconic hat, this was the start of a journey to narrowing these assets better.
I was unhappy with the first prompt, as it didn’t translate to a product that could actually be sold in store.
“/imagine a luxury chocolate gift collection box in collaboration with Willy Wonka film release. The box should be filled with chocolate truffles in the shape of Willy Wonkas iconic head, hair and hat. V5”
Version 6: The Box 2.0
Here I put much more focus on the box, looking to help direct the prompt to be more aligned to a classic box of chocolates.
This was the first breakthrough moment with the prompts - a clear direction and something that would work for telling the story I needed.. but it wasn’t perfect.
“/imagine a purple box of luxury chocolate truffles. Each truffle in the style and shape of Willy Wonkas hat. V5.”
Version 7: The Final Box
In MidJourney you can upscale each of your 4 options, or choose a variation.
After a series of variations and upscaling, I settled on this box. It isn’t perfect, as the red truffle on the right will need photoshop work done to fix it, but the overall colour and hat shape was consistent enough for me to move on.
“/imagine a purple box of luxury chocolate truffles. Each truffle in the style and shape of Willy Wonkas hat. V5.”
Version 8: The Central Feature
Here, I wanted to explore an iconic piece of Wonka cinema, and one that would link perfectly if brought to life - the chocolate river.
Bearing in mind my goal - to be able to have assets to tell a story - I was really happy with the first result for these images. The key being that it was converted into a retail setting, it brought it to life in a highstreet store for me.
“/imagine a mini chocolate river collaboration between Willy Wonka and hotel chocolat. Set in Willy Wonkas sweet land but converted to a retail display.”
Version 9: The Brand Presence
Here I wanted to explore the idea of how the colour purple could be used in a Hotel Chocolat environment to immediately bring the connection to Wonka - in the same way that Barbie used pink in their recent campaign.
I was only happy with 1 aspect, so I went down the rabbit hole of creating variations with it.
“/imagine a product that could be sold to represent a 'chocolate river'. Brand collaboration between a luxury chocolate provider and Willy Wonka. Purple colours throughout. Set in a luxury retail unit.”
Version 10: Change & Adapt
I wanted some variations of version 3 in the previous image, but I didn’t love the look of the look of how the brown blended into the purple on the wave. So used a few variations to get to a point that I was happy.
“/imagine a product that could be sold to represent a 'chocolate river'. Brand collaboration between a luxury chocolate provider and Willy Wonka. Purple colours throughout. Set in a luxury retail unit.”
Version 11: The Retail Store
Knowing that this was a Hotel Chocolat collaboration, I didn’t want to put too much focus on the exterior of the retail unit, as it wouldn’t be an entire makeover. I was however happy with this as a final sprinkle on top of the set of images I had collated.
“/imagine a retail layout for a luxury chocolate shop collaboration with the new Willy Woka film. Internal takeover. Purple. Luxury feel. V5.”
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Wrapping up, there’s no doubt that AI is here to stay.
As a creative agency, human and real experience-led design will always be central to our work. But a tool such as Midjourney helps the initial exploration of early thoughts, giving shape and narrative to ideas by forcing questioning and refinement.
To talk to us about your future plans, or anything weird and wonderful you’d like bringing to life, reach out below.
