Putting together presentations - General tips for Strategic Planners

Although strategic planners spend the majority of their time turning data into information, they are judged on what they present.

I trust that these guidelines will help planners in the preparation of more effective presentations.

1. When receiving a verbal brief, put down what you think the deliverable/outcome is in an email to the team. Also, if you do not email them once in a while to give them the status of your progress, then expect to receive hints and worried 'walk-ins' into your office. People (a category client service often fall into) feel insecure when they have no direct control over their performance at a future event. They should at least know 'how it's going'.

2. "I need a comstrat/research" can mean one of a million things. That's why point 1 above is so important.

3. Do NOT assume that you know the outcome of your research. In fact, always assume that you don't. However, there are times when this is an exception - e.g. when I was asked to test a radio ad, because the client felt it was 'not working'. I listened to the ad and proclaimed the test was over - the ad did not convey anything comprehensible. I had a good relationship with the CD at the time, and we both agreed. End of story.

4. Build a network in the agency. Bouncing off slides as you go along (to anyone) can make the job easier. Just don't get addicted to it, because you would then lose confidence in your own judgement.

5. The content
   1. Just collect information - do not try and see the relevance of the info or see where it fits into the story. Besides the data on file, also use AMPS (obviously choose rows and columns that you believe to be 'maybe interesting' - you can always throw it away or do another run later). Also do a 'funnel search' i.e. start wide with a basic search engine (Yahoo! Or Google), and then drill down with any hits. Also download all 'maybe relevant' case studies from warc.com. Also search findarticles.com any other database that might be relevant (or you have paid access to). Current news articles (as opposed to research) are easy to find - I use Europe's ft.com. Specific advertising sites are adage.com and advertising.utexas.com (great site for things like quotes and general planning info).

   2. Prepare the opening slide of your presentation - ie what you think (at that stage) the presentation will cover (based loosely on the brief you received).

   3. Drop in those existing slides you have from previous work that you think might have some relevance. You now have an opening slide and some additional slides from existing work (could even be slides the client has supplied).

   4. You will now only have a vague idea of where you are going. If you feel you have clarity at this stage, you're in dangerous water - you cannot draw inferences from the disparate pieces of information you have assembled.

   5. Telling the story
      1. The presentation is made up of a story with a beginning, middle and an end. This is the overall macro story, which you will NOT see clearly at this stage. You now need to review all the information you collected into numerous micro stories, i.e. each slide to tell a very clear story. The structure of the slide depends on the style of the presenter. The experience of the planner can often be inferred from that nature of the slide - all the information in longhand is a planner that has neglected the entertainment aspect of the presentation. The advantage is that all the information is there, but you will need to wake up the audience at the end of it. If you have a strong storytelling style, you can then tell an entire story (with beginning, middle and end) with as little as one word on a slide. This is a great quality to have, but don't just email this to the team (unless they have an intimate understanding of your style), but either send with detailed notes or take them through it.

      2. Once you have done all your micro stories (which should look like a hodgepodge of unrelated slides), print them out and lay them on a large table. Mark each slide with a letter, depending where you think it would fit in ('a' for the intro, 'b' for the middle and 'c' for the conclusion) and then redraft the presentation with this order. The macro story now begins to take form. Print out again if you like and do the process once more.

      3. Go over it in Presentation mode on the computer and tweak as you go along.

      4. Top with icing and serve.