“We want them to be special”: The Potions Cauldron’s Ben Fry and Speak Consulting’s Graham Speak on their Marvel drinks range

Ben, Graham, it’s great to connect. Ben, if you can kick us off – for anyone new to The Potions Cauldron, talk us through what you do?
Ben Fry, Chief Enchantment Officer, The Potions Cauldron Group: Our aim is to create magical fun! Starting back in 2018, we opened our first potion making experience on the world-famous Shambles in York – and the unique drinks were born. Since then, we’ve opened six more experiences, including our ‘Hole in Wand’ themed mini golf adventures – where your score influences the potion you receive. We’ve just announced our latest and biggest venue – Leeds – will open later this year too.

But we didn’t want to stop with our own experiences, so we also wholesale our Potions to many other retailers including HMV, Merlin, Center Parcs and Forbidden Planet.

One of the projects we are most proud of – so far – is our partnership with Disney Cruise lines. We worked with them to create exclusive potions for their Haunted Mansion Parlor on board the Disney Treasure!

Terrific. And Graham, for anyone new to Speak Consulting, can you talk us through your focuses there?
Graham Speak, Director, Speak Consulting: Absolutely. I have 20 years’ experience in commercial partnerships, retail and licensing businesses, including Disney, ASDA and the Very Group – but I’ve always had a passion for the attractions industry. Cheesy as it sounds, I love playing a small part in creating moments of fun and making people smile with friends and family.

“We want big Marvel fans to look at the product and want to collect them all.”

So Speak Consulting helps businesses, predominantly in the attractions industry, on projects relating to licensing, brand partnerships and retail optimisation. I’m currently supporting the wizards at Potion Cauldron – alongside projects with Merlin Entertainments and National Trust for Scotland.

How did this partnership between Potion Cauldron and Disney come about?
Ben: We were having lots of success wholesaling our potions drink across the UK, US and Middle East, but saw an opportunity to tell stories through our product with other core play patterns. Attending trade shows across the globe, it became clear that a licensed partnership could help us super-charge our efforts… Hence bringing Graham in to support us understand more.

We didn’t just want to ‘badge slap’ as that isn’t the way we do things. We wanted to create something that made sense and people would be ‘wowed’ with and want to collect… Something genuinely different in the market.

Graham: We were purposeful about who we approached – spending time doing a market scope to find the right partner. The guys at Potion Cauldron have always been huge Disney fans too – so when that came back as an option, we were over the moon to be able to work together.

Since then, we have spent lots of time with the team at Disney to bring Marvel stories to life through the product. And we’re only just starting!

Now, the press release said that shaking these bottles activates the ‘hero glow’ of these characters – I’m sold! What goes into crafting that effect? Is it as tricky as I’m thinking it is?
Ben: It’s definitely got some challenges versus more standard drinks. It’s also been critical to us to do things in the right way, so the products are all sugar free. We’ve added more complexity by not using certain ingredients that would make the effect easier but aren’t great for you too. We want to do things responsibly.

Graham: We want the drinks to be special and so haven’t cut corners. Our aim is to create a great product for the premium soft drink market – creating incremental category value.

The bottles themselves look terrific. How much thinking was there around these being collectors’ items, instead of more disposable drinks?
Ben: We’ve worked really hard with the Disney team, especially Josh Clare and Laura Harris, to get the balance right on this – alongside our packaging designer, Paul Haylings. We want big Marvel fans to look at the product and want to collect them all. But we also want them to be recognisable enough that casual superhero fans are excited by them too.

Graham: Future plans include adding movie-specific and limited-edition collectible bottles to the range too. And we have lots more creative ideas to tap in to as well to keep things fresh for Marvel fans.

Talk us through the process of choosing characters and then getting the colours and flavours right. I imagine Hulk is a more straightforward conversation than, say, Captain America?
Ben: We have to give lots of credit here to Josh and the Disney team, who understand their stories and characters better than anyone. They’ve helped us line up the best artwork, character uses, names, colours – with the flavour options we have in our portfolio.

What can you tell us about what’s next from this partnership with Disney?
Ben: We’re working hard at the minute to bring the product in to some new sales channels – along with launching in the Middle East, where we see a huge opportunity.

As we mentioned, we’re working on some limited edition designs already.

Graham: We’re also excited about how we could bring other stories to life – there’s almost unlimited opportunity. And there are some even bigger projects in the works… But we definitely can’t talk about those!

Last question! What fuels your creativity?
Ben: The whole extended team are passionate about creating fun moments for as many people as we can. And working with the Disney team and a franchise as rich in content as Marvel – it’s hard not to get excited and creative!