In corporate environments driven by analytics and formality, infusing humor and creativity into presentations is often an uphill battle. As the head of design in our company, I lead a team that is the creative spark to ignite our organization. We constantly seek innovative ways to break free from convention, and our secret weapon this time was AI - specifically the all-powerful Midjourney. In this article, I share our recent success in transforming a quarterly presentation, usually laden with technical content (and a little boring, if I’m honest), into a genuinely entertaining and engaging experience using AI-generated images.
Barbie: Inspiring creativity across Corporate America
The challenge was to liven up our quarterly presentation, where department heads discuss company achievements, plans, and news. Herding a stampede of analytical techies with dry storytelling, numbers, and schemas was a tall order, but we pulled it off with an unexpected twist. Following the blockbuster release of the movie, we used Barbie as the theme for our presentation.
To evoke inspiration and engagement, we transformed our department heads into Barbies and Kens, unveiling their images as they began to present, resulting in laughter and an unparalleled audience connection. This approach deviated from our regular internal reporting style, which had always been in our corporate brand identity and tone. The presentation was such a success that people were laughing and having fun, while also learning and feeling connected. It transformed the meeting into a blockbuster, with people glued to their seats and eager for more. Cue the popcorn. It highlighted the benefits of seamlessly integrating humor into corporate narratives and created more meaningful connections within the organization.
AI Unleashed: Making the Impossible Possible
Once we chose Barbie as our theme for the presentation, we immediately realized that our power would lie not in the AI tool itself but in our capabilities to generate efficient prompts, and we tested over one hundred of them.
Extensive research into Barbie themes helped us extract the perfect prompts, ensuring our results were spectacular. Additionally, we employed a specialized plugin called “In Face” to seamlessly replace the faces of Barbies and Kens with those of our department heads. While AI occasionally delivers clunky results, the key is persistence – constantly refining prompts until the desired outcome is achieved.
Thorough Research: Crafting Personalized Barbie-Themed Avatars
Before transforming our coworkers into Barbie and Ken avatars, we researched extensively to ensure a personalized touch. Our approach involved studying iconic Barbie looks from different decades. For instance, our CEO, Phillippe, became Ken in an 80s denim outfit, morphing into an 80s sleeveless Ken, embodying his essence and love of that era.
Contemporary Inspiration
The Barbie movie inspired us to look at Barbie’s style evolution, which we drew inspiration from to make our Barbie avatars resonate with our colleagues.
Drawing from Popular Barbie Toys
We also drew inspiration from popular Barbie toys, incorporating their outfits and landscapes into our avatars. This approach added depth and authenticity to each transformation.
A Personalized Touch
Our research ensured that each avatar carried a personal touch, going beyond visuals to capture the essence of each colleague. Our crowning achievement was the transformation of our usually stoic Chief Technology Officer, Victor. His AI-generated Barbie transformation was portrayed as a muscle-bound Ken, basking on a beach. Our creative endeavor was so good, it had everyone laughing until their sides hurt, proving it was a smash hit.
Conclusion
Our exploration of AI and Barbie went beyond merely improving engagement; it highlighted the critical role of ongoing innovation in communication approaches across the corporate American landscape. We intend to continue leveraging AI’s potential to break conventional boundaries and inject more creativity and personalization into our design conventions. Our experiment showed that a little humor and innovation can go a long way when it comes to transforming corporate narratives and building stronger connections within a team. Who knew that adding a few creative elements could make corporate stories so much more fun, engaging, and memorable?
Written by Xenia Gray, Lead Designer at EastBanc Technologies. Her opinions are hers alone and don’t necessarily reflect those of EastBanc Technologies.