Presentations. Get to the point.
What would the world be without PowerPoint? And without presentations? Whether as an instrument in sales or the onboarding of new employees, at the works council meeting or press conference, as slides in webinars or as a soundtracked version of product presentations on the web, to support information in committees and as a fast visualization tool for ideas … presentations are used in a variety of ways. There are a correspondingly large number of templates and designs available on the World Wide Web. Not to mention the creativity of the individual user.
From the standpoint of branding, for us as a branding agency, presentations, which are usually based on PowerPoint, are a valuable tool. Nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that the presentation, which is professionally designed in terms of content and visual appearance, does not yet replace the presenter’s rhetoric and eloquence. And that overcrowded presentation slides in seven-point fonts cause the audience to squint and shake their heads.
Rhetoric and presenting have to be trained. The same applies to the knowledge of designing and building up dramatically good, exciting, inspiring, or informational presentations. For brand management, however, it goes one step further at the brand agency: Basic knowledge on presenting the brand must be available in presentations, so that slides are created in the corporate design of the company and individual creativity knows its limits.
For presentations, Microsoft PowerPoint offers excellent possibilities for creating slide masters for different typical applications. Color schemes can be set up. Preferred formats for tables, shapes, SmartArt objects, and diagrams can be defined. The same applies to the use of effects during the transition of slides or the animation of objects. This is all in the spirit of the brand and derived from the brand image. If the use of PowerPoint is trained internally (in the sense of train-the-trainer by the brand agency), its use is carefully controlled, and standard presentations are available as a basis, then order is created. And colleagues from different locations can easily meet each other at the customer’s premises, present their part, and inspire the customer with the uniform style and visual strength of the brand presentation.
Of course, it is a long way to go before this uniformity emerges. Time and efficiency advantages are an important argument. If the colleagues of all departments are additionally provided with practical tips and tricks, an in-house image archive is provided, and a pool of presentation slides that are generally valid is made available, the task becomes manageable. And effective for the brand.