Last December, the blockbuster Hollywood film Wonka, a prequel to the classic book and film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Timothée Chalamet as the famous Willy Wonka, was released to theaters. Branding activities took place around the world to help promote the Warner Bros. release.
One standout example of this creative branding was “Wonka’s Sweet Escape,” an immersive experience found at Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto. This particular activation offered fans and visitors the chance to walk around inside Wonka’s candy shop and enjoy a series of photo opportunities.
Gene Tegola, president of Reignite Marketing, worked on the initiative with Warner Bros. Canada and Oxford Properties’ Yorkdale Shopping Centre. Yorkdale Shopping Centre is one of the five major malls in the country with dedicated space for hosting these types of events.
Long-term partner Global Printing Enterprises (GPE), a Mississauga, Ontario-based print business operating out of a 10,000-square-foot facility with twelve to twenty employees (depending on the season) and with experience in large format event specialties, was brought onboard to support the printing and installation of the project. The company ended up producing wall murals, displays, backdrops, and floor graphics for it. (Note: GPE operates out of a 10,000-square-foot facility with, depending on the season, three full-time designers on staff, as well as an industrial designer and a part-time engineer to figure out loads and angles.)
The company already implemented plenty of display projects for the mall including experiential graphics installations featuring key iconography and catchphrases for TV series Friends and The Office, as well as a massive (and massively well received) 400-foot-long-by-40-foot mural for the movie Aquaman back in 2018.
As well as ensuring that the printed materials used in “Wonka’s Sweet Escape” stood out and captured the attention and imagination of the general public, GPE had several other major challenges to deal with during the project. These included strict requirements for the materials being used—such as indoor-air quality standards, anti-slip certification, and fire compliance.
“Printing, cutting, and finishing is so second nature to us now that we can do with our eyes closed. It’s all the behind that scenes work that’s challenging now—meeting all the regulations, insurance, and criteria that the mall has for the safety of the people who are in it,” says Carlo Toscano, president of Global Printing Enterprises. “They didn’t want anything that had a UV or solvent smell. All the materials had to be American and Canadian fire-retardant.
“And we had to find a product that met both dry and wet slip resistance, so when the floor got wet and grimy from people coming in with their winter boots, no one would fall.”
The print provider used Drytac Polar Grip Air, a white polymeric self-adhesive vinyl with air release technology, and Polar Premium Air, a self-adhesive vinyl also with air egress technology, for this immersive project. They also employed ReTac Smooth 150 polymeric PVC film and FloorTac matte white polymeric PVC film, which they paired with Interlam Pro Emerytex.
The company ended up printing over 5,000 square feet of graphics (give or take 500 square feet) for this tasty project. To address the air quality standards, GPE used their HP 3200 Latex printer to produce all the graphics.
The range of prints created for this experience was truly remarkable.
For instance, GPE produced a vibrant carpet floor graphic measuring 32-by-70 feet, as well as a 20-foot-wide entry graphic featuring the Wonka logo and premiere.
“We applied all the graphics to a ceramic floor with 1/4-inch grout lines,” explains Toscano. “It was very time-consuming being on our knees as we used large squeegees and a laser level to keep everything square.
GPE printed a vinyl floor graphic that looked like real carpet. “People were putting their hands down on the ground and being amazed that what they were touching was not carpet,” boasts Toscano. “They couldn’t believe it.”
The print specialist also produced and installed a cobblestone path adorned with a thirty-five-foot-tall cherry blossom tree. “We created the cobblestone path from a high-resolution sample picture that was tiny (12-by-16 inches),” explains Toscano. “We then repeated the pattern, and thanks to some Photoshop magic, we made it round and sized to a twenty-foot-wide circle.
“In true Willie Wonka fashion, we then converted the gray cobblestone to red-pink hues and printed it out in multiple patterns and applied over top and around the center tree area.”
The cherry tree, oversized mushrooms, flowers, and lollipop displays were all courtesy of fabricator dpfx.to.
Additionally multidisciplinary design and fabrication agency Drawbox Design & Fabrication contributed a colossal, 3D-rendered Wonka chocolate bar, while large-scale graphics featuring beloved characters from the film completed the captivating scene.
Although the props look like edible chocolate, these components were mostly made out of EVA and PU foam, cardboard, and paper.
“The tree was put in place first, and we worked around it, laying the floor down first and then the cobblestone path second, hence multiple layers of floor graphics,” explains Toscano. “All these components had to be either painted or sprayed with a fire-retardant liquid in order to meet fire codes.”
“Wonka’s Sweet Escape” was not only an “eye-candy” visual experience but a sensory one as well. Being inspired by Wonka’s chocolate, Toscano contacted a U.S. scent company on the Internet with a “never-ending” list of scented offerings to add to the display.
“We hid these scent bags of chocolate inside the tree,” says Toscano, “and when you put a little fan to it, the whole space smelled like chocolate. It’s a concentrated chocolate that lasts about a week and a little bag will cover about 500 to 1,000 square feet in radius.”
The effect was a success as people smelled chocolate everywhere they walked throughout the experiential display. They wondered where the scent was coming from. “People were starting to believe the tree was made out of chocolate,” laughs Toscano.
The display was so realistic that GPE had to go back in and replace parts of it during it run, as things like mushrooms and lollipops were stolen. “People thought they were real. I guess when a kid bites into it and sees that its tasting of lacquer,” says Toscano. “I don’t think it was a good thing.”
The captivating display, which ran until January 2, successfully provided an immersive brand experience and generating a massive audience throughout its run (even contemplating security). The “Wonka’s Sweet Treat” experience also generated a tremendous amount of excitement and significantly increased recognition of the film—evidenced in a substantial surge in movie ticket sales for the film at Yorkdale Mall.
“They sold out tickets at the cinema at the mall. They even had to add two additional theaters to exhibit the movie, thanks to people enjoying and interacting with this display,” says Toscano. “It was incredible.”
And GPE’s work on this project earned equally rave reviews from both kids and adults blown away by their experiential work here.
“I think the next step for most of these big retail locations is how to incorporate an indoor event leading to an outside event, especially in the summer months.” says Toscano.
