Visualizing Brand Pivots

Using AI to imagine major brand pivots: From Tesla promoting car-free cities, to McDonald's offering healthy vegetarian food only, and Shell transforming its gas stations into bicycle stops, and more

My long-time subscribers will remember the visuals-focused (memes, images, screenshots, gifs, tweets…) issues I did last year: there was one about Consumerism, another about Car Centricity, one on Minimalist (or Efficient) Design, and one about inspiring City Solutions.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

It’s a cheesy saying, but well, it’s true. So, I thought it was time to do another easy-to-digest, visuals-focused issue. But for this one, I am using Generative AI. More specifically, a text-to-image generator called Midjourney! Midjourney is still in beta but already allows for some mind-blowing output.

Inspired by the work of Brandalism and other stuff I recently came across, I wanted to do a bit of brand-hacking. Simply to kickstart a bit of divergent thinking and creativity.

So below, you’ll see images created with Midjourney, including the prompt I used (or ended up using) to create each. Enjoy!

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“Tesla promoting car-free cities and public transit”

“A community center by Facebook that helps community members connect and build their community” (somehow the AI made it look like this was by Twitter)

“A McDonald’s that offers healthy vegetarian food and promotes fitness”

“A gas station by Shell with solar panels on the roof that services only bicycles”

“Tyson Foods turning its animal farms into vegetable, permaculture farms”

“An electric tram made by Mercedes Benz driving through a city”

“An alteration shop by fast fashion brand H&M showing stitched and repaired clothing”

“Mining company Rio Tinto regenerating a mine into a lush rainforest”

“Wall Street becoming a sanctuary for the poor with stalls offering free food and money”

“Coca-Cola showing kids how much sugar there is in their coke”

“Mastercard launching a basic income card covering food, accommodation and healthcare essentials”

“A passenger train by Emirates Airlines powered by solar panels”

“An Amazon warehouse with childcare facilities and happy workers with great work-life balance”

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Extra:
I also had some fun imagining a few unique brand collaborations

“A brand collaboration between Oatly and Patagonia”

“A brand collaboration between Ganni and Airbnb”

“A brand collaboration between Ikea and Ben & Jerry’s”

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Alright, that’s it for this week!

Thomas