From a Coveted D&AD Wood Pencil to a Potential Cannes Lion, Marcel & Lidl's “Lidlize" Campaign, Powered by Bria.AI, is Turning Heads Across the Creative World
When Paris-based creative agency Marcel set out to turn Lidl's signature brand swagger into an interactive experience for fans, they landed on a bold idea: let the public design the products. Powered by Bria's brand-safe generative AI, the resulting campaign—Lidlize—made it effortless for anyone to create on-brand product concepts using simple text prompts. In just three weeks, it generated over 1.7 million visuals, earned a prestigious D&AD Wood Pencil for User Participation, and set the stage for what could be its successive big win: a Cannes Lion.
Type in a Product – Try "folding bike," “a bouncy castle," or "a baby onesie."
Lidilize It: Watch Bria's Tailored Text-to-Image model wrap it in Lidl's red-yellow-blue DNA in real-time with sub-two-second latency even at viral peaks.
Vote, Share, Repeat: The most popular concepts move from pixels to production, hitting real shelves.
The magic behind the fun? Serious engineering. The system runs on:
Custom fine-tuning (LoRA) to embed Lidl's brand DNA
Multilingual prompt support to reach a global audience
Multi-layered moderation to keep every image brand-safe, fast, and compliant—even under viral pressure
Lidlize is already making waves on the global stage.
It has recently earned a D&AD Wood Pencil—a prestigious honor that celebrates creativity and innovation in design and advertising.
And next up: Cannes Lions. With submissions closed and juries now reviewing entries for the June 16–20 festival, Lidlize is a frontrunner in the Brand Experience & Activation category.
If it takes home the Lion, Lidlize will be the rare campaign that sweeps the three big spring shows. It's a powerful signal that community-driven design and responsible Gen-AI are no longer novelties—they're redefining creative excellence.
Lidlize isn't just an awards darling—it's a blueprint for how brands can harness generative AI in a way that's engaging, safe, and wildly effective. Here are three big lessons:
|
Lesson |
What Lidlize shows |
|---|---|
|
Your Fans Are a Creative Department |
UGC-first mechanics drove ~2 M product concepts with zero media spend. By putting creation tools directly into users' hands, Lidl sparked nearly 2 million product concepts, with zero paid media. The crowd became the creator, and the community did the marketing. |
|
Guardrails Are the New Gold Standard |
Licensed training data, proactive moderation, and built-in compliance features transformed what could have been an "AI risk" into a case study in responsible innovation—and made juries take notice. Licensed data + proactive moderation turned “I risk" into "award-winning responsibility." |
|
Speed Fuels Engagement |
Sub-2-second renders kept engagement curves vertical. With image generation happening in under two seconds, the experience stayed fun and frictionless. In Gen-AI, latency isn't just a tech metric—it's a make-or-break moment. |
While Lidlize appeared playful and straightforward on the surface, it was powered by serious technology underneath. Bria's platform enabled the entire experience, from creative fidelity to operational scale:
Fine-Tuning: We distilled Lidl's unique brand DNA—color palette, typography, tone—into a custom-trained model, ensuring every image was unmistakably "Lidl."
Prompt Automation: Simple natural-language prompts made it easy for anyone, regardless of design skill, to generate production-worthy visuals.
Scalable Infrastructure: Our autoscaling GPU clusters handled massive usage spikes—especially during TikTok-fueled surges—without a hitch.
Built-In Ethics & Compliance: Every output was backed by copyright-clean data and EU AI Act–ready audit trails, giving Lidl the confidence to go big without regulatory risk.
What's Next?
Whether you're a retailer, game studio, or CPG innovator, Lidlize proves that imagination scales when great ideas meet the proper AI tooling. Explore the complete case study or contact us at hi@bria.ai to learn how Bria can tailor Gen-AI to meet your brand's specific needs.
Congratulations again to the visionary teams at Marcel and Lidl. We look forward to seeing you on stage in Cannes.