It seems in our world, decks have become our currency. It used to be the black and white Art Director scamp was the most revered ‘product’ in an agency and in meetings. Today it seems it’s the deck. Whether that’s right or wrong is another thought for another day.
I work in Keynote because I have become more familiar and comfortable with it. I dabble in Google Slides as it’s easier to share across multiple people and always works when it comes to online meetings. I have avoided PowerPoint for some time. But you know what, I think I may have come back to love it. Those who know me will be horrified by this.
We’ve been working with a great group of people at Presented for some client presentations to add some extra pizazz and when I had the opportunity to speak at the PAGB Digital Week last month, I knew that our template and my skills were just going to look flat. I wanted to lift our presentation, I really wish I had time and the skills and the balls to do a pre-recorded film but this came pretty close.
Sometimes the temptation is always to just jump straight into Keynote but having had the outline idea, it started here on Post Its. Still by far the best way to distill your thinking, organise the flow, question what you’re saying and why. It also forces you very early to think of the key messages, not the long-form.
Only when I was reasonably comfy with it did it move into Google Slides. No design, why waste time with that when I totally trust the team at Presented? Key messages with annotations of what I was thinking to bring the slide to life. And then after we’d tossed it about internally between a few of us, I let the team at Presented get to it. I think I made two small adjustments to the final version they sent. In then end I hid about four of the slides as when rehearsing they were a bit superfluous and took too long for the time I had. The end result is really impressive – check out the video below to see all the animations. Yes, this is all PowerPoint. I may have to dive into PowerPoint again. Let me know what you think?
I can’t show you the final presentation in full because of client confidential information but here is a write up.
And always nice to get some feedback from a client who was in the audience:
I thought it was a great presentation! Well done, really! It was informative for attendees, with hands-on concrete information – and at the same time it was a really nice advertising moment for Team 11. 😊 You came across as very professional, knowledgeable, and with a great track record. I know that if I didn’t have you already as my global agency, I would definitely have contacted you guys when “shopping around” for an agency that can support me with me digital strategy and activation.
Link to the Presented team’s Linked In post about this project.
