Comms Planning in Presentation Mode

Whether it’s a reading deck or presentation deck, walking a client through strategic work is a task we all face. Too often, the meeting is held over the phone where attention spans are frighteningly short and it’s easy to lose someone as you explain a text heavy page. Sometimes, even when you’re in person it can be hard to not use what’s on screen as a crutch.

We all know the basic guidelines of presentations:

· Never read the page — your voice over should be complementary to the deck, not a replacement of it

· If you have nothing to add to the text on the page, acknowledge that it’s self-explanatory or that the audience knows the information well — just explain what it is and how it was used for the rest of the presentation and move on

· If you’re presenting with a group (which we almost always are), don’t build on someone else’s build — a former planning director gave me this advice and it is just so true. No reason to beat a point to death

But to get more granular, how do you treat presentation of some of the more complex communications planning tools (messaging frameworks, blue prints, ecosystems)? These tools naturally have a lot of text and can be hard to look at for anyone, regardless of if they’ve worked in them before. Here are a few basic guidelines that I’ve found helpful in getting through a presentation successfully.

1. Don’t tell them what’s on the page, tell them why it matters.

It could be easy when presenting this type of page to just say “this is our objective” — but it doesn’t add anything to what’s written. Instead, something like “this comms objective will be the center of gravity for all the work you’ll see in this deck — at every step of a consumer’s path this summer we will be elevated”.

2. Give them the lay of the land, a quick example and ask for questions.

Explain to them how to read it: “down the side are the channels grouped by communications task and across the top is the campaign timing so you get a full picture of the campaign and how production dollars are being used”. Then give them an example: “so you see that we’re spending the majority of our budget on digital video content that will be a consistent layer of our emotional benefit — we’re planning on making 3 videos; each one will be live for 1 month during the course of the campaign”

3. Don’t jump around — consider the most organized way to present the information.

Instead of reading left to right (i.e. the two comms tasks are… the RTB for each is… the channels are…), read through one entire comms task vertically and then explain the second comms task and let the audience read through the RTBs and channels, etc. in their own time

4. Ask questions frequently — especially if the documents are new for people, ensure that they’re with you each step of the way.

5. Always explain why/how the documents are used — what’s their purpose?

Is there a previous situation where this document would have been useful? Have the creative teams already started using a particular document in a way you can point out?

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