Www.deconstructingcreativestrategy.com © Rich Feldman 2007 All Rights Reserved

www.deconstructingcreativestrategy.com © Rich Feldman 2007 All Rights Reserved


Hello, my name is Rich and I’m addicted to

PowerPoint

• I’m no different than anyone else in corporate America who gives presentations with any frequency

• I write “decks” because they help me organize and remember what I and others on my team want to say

• God help us if the projector we’re using fails us and we have to actually speak without the aid of PowerPoint slides

• It’s happened; it wasn’t pretty


I tried weaning off of it

• With index cards– But I felt like I was in the Stonehenge scene from This Is Spinal Tap

• With a teleprompter– But ever try to fit a teleprompter in your briefcase?

• With a nicotine patch– But smoking and PowerPointing are evidently not linked


The real victim: the person who has to sit

through them

• PowerPointese has become the language of our time in business

• Problem is, like any language, it gets abused

– Unfortunately, there are no “PowerPoint As a Second Language” courses being taught in school

• For example …


The way too much to read on one page effect

• The first mistake is in assuming that people want to read bullets in the exact same language that they would hear someone speak it in with all the prepositions, punctuation, and colloquialisms in place

• The second mistake is in assuming that the slide has to have every possible point, told in every possible manner, so as not to forget a single possible idea

• The last mistake is in assuming that people actually read – particularly when there are a lot of slides, it’s late in the day, sugar levels are low and it’s the tenth PowerPoint meeting of the day

• So what was assembled with great care and undo stress winds up being a character assault that communicates basically nothing mostly because the audience is struggling so hard to stay awake that a lead pencil poorly positioned could conceivably impale a suddenly falling forehead and forever change the outcome of the presentation


The “I’ve got 2 good bullets

but I need 3” effect• First bullet says something pithy and insightful

• Second bullet says something worthy of introspect

• Third bullet is pure drivel inserted because two pithy points feel like a letdown

Outcome: 2 piths + 1 drivel = pivel (pithy drivel) which fails to motivate anyone

Example:• Consumers who frequently buy online have become sensitized to paying sales tax

• Brick & mortar retailers can counter this backlash by offering a discount equal to the amount of the tax

• There is a correlation between those who do pay sales tax and customer loyalty

Example:• Consumers who frequently buy online have become sensitized to paying sales tax

• Brick & mortar retailers can counter this backlash by offering a discount equal to the amount of the tax

• There is a correlation between those who do pay sales tax and customer loyalty


The page filled with shmergle™ effect

• Shmergle™ [sh-mur-gull] – noun 1. impressive language which really says nothing new; 2. what people already know said in a new way

• Most common shmergle headers:

– Situation Analysis: follows with a highfalutin restatement of what is entirely self-evident

– Paradigm Shift: a ramble where the word “change” just won’t do here

– Strategy: more often than not a re-statement of objectives, not a pathway for achieving them


The bad background and transition effects

effect

• Templates are like alcohol: too much in the wrong hands is a very bad thing

• Instead of inspiring confidence and interest, they raise doubts and distract

• Who said a degree from a business school is a license to be creative?


In sum, The PowerPoint Effect: words that don’t resonate, convince

or convert

• Though PowerPoint is how people in business now commonly talk to one another, it’s a fitting analogy for B2B marketing in particular … all marketing in general:

• Dependence on presentations, white papers, over-burdened offers, and other written communications that challenge an audience’s cognitive capacity and stamina …

• will leave them tuned out long before you’ve turned it on


The antidote: To engage your customers, get

them talking

• Stimulate a “customer service” interaction• Invite to a “debate” about a sensitive business

conflict• Ask them something other than “What do you want to

buy today”• Invite consumer generated content• Get involved on blog, forum, and sharing sites• Include your employees on social networking tools

(e.g., LinkedIn)• Mail/email an acknowledgement• Be strategically entertaining• Give them a dialogue “mechanism” (such as an avatar)


Convinced?

• Get back to the book

Documents

Www.deconstructingcreativestrategy.com © Rich Feldman 2007 All Rights Reserved