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Unauthorized Fantasy Journey: How Willy's Chocolate Experience subverts the expectations of parents and children?
In February 2024, the "Willy's Chocolate Experience" event held in Glasgow, Scotland, caused widespread controversy due to unauthorized use. The event, which was billed as an immersive family interaction experience, ended up disappointing many expecting families. There was obviously a huge gap from the initial dreamy promotional images to the actual humble venue, causing the event to trigger a wave of reactions and even attract the attention of global media.
The campaign was promoted in an astonishing way, using extremely poor quality AI-generated images. Not only do the images contain spelling errors, but they also contain nonsensical vocabulary that cast doubt on their authenticity.
It is understood that Willy's Chocolate Experience was originally scheduled to be held from February 24 to 25, 2024. The promotional material referred to "enchanting scenes inspired by Rod Dahl's timeless story", which was obviously a far cry from what was happening that day. The performance space has been described as "almost an abandoned empty warehouse", in stark contrast to the flashy publicity.
The organizer of the event, a company called House of Illuminati, was founded by Billy Coull and claims to provide "unparalleled immersive experience." However, according to the investigation, multiple websites and activity descriptions of Coull are likely to be generated by an AI chatbot. This is naturally an unacceptable fact for parents and children who are not familiar with the background.
All the arrangements for this event were full of poor preparation from the beginning. According to the actors involved, they had little time to study the script and the props were not fully prepared.
The event's script is ridiculously titled "Wonkidoodles at McDuff's Chocolate Factory: A Script." The script describes how the character McDuff fails to defeat a villain named "The Unknown" with a virtual vacuum cleaner. A lack of communication between vendors and performers resulted in a disjointed show, many children who came to watch were faced with fear, and unfortunately, after the first few performances, the actors were even told to no longer follow the script performance, which undoubtedly disrupted the rhythm of the entire event.
Not only was the performance chaotic, but even the preparation of the props was difficult. When the children want to enjoy the candy, the supply is constantly running out, and even the faces that look forward to it are just a helpless "sorry".
The event ended unsatisfactorily, with most participants demanding refunds. Many people said that they spent a lot of time and money on this false event. Coull eventually promised to refund 850 customers, but many people still doubt whether this is just empty talk. As the incident unfolded, Coull's reputation as the person in charge took a major hit and he announced his withdrawal on social media.
Restaurants, bars and local businesses even began to help families who were unable to attend the event and gave back to the community through charity events, auctioning off some of the remaining props from the event for fundraising.
Interestingly, this incident ultimately produced a lot of humorous effects on social media. Some netizens launched a challenge to dress up as the "unknown person" in the event on Halloween as a way of irony.
Many media outlets later followed up with reports, and the incident unexpectedly became a cultural phenomenon. The spread of photos and humorous memes continues to attract attention online, with some even joking that it will become a bad example of marketing.
This controversy not only makes people reflect on how to build trust between consumers and businesses, but also makes people think about how parents should be more cautious about various "dreams" and "phantoms" promoted online in similar activities in the future. ?
