How many presentations a day do you sit through? How many really knock your socks off? Let’s be honest, too many pitches fail to really captivate us, let alone keep our attention all throughout. Much has to do with the way they are delivered.
As an agency, it’s our duty to pack each pitch in a fresh, surprising and applaud-worthy wrapping. Like Don Draper teaches us in Mad Men, don’t just present your idea, perform it. That’s advice for any professional, in any role, really.
To find inspiration, we dug up the most successful pitch formulas in BBC history. What do they teach us about making your presentation as meaningful and memorable as possible?
The Rapper’s Delight Revelation
A hip, a hop and two rhythmic BBC creatives. Surely our client had never seen a brand manifesto being rap-battled before – and how they loved it. It showed we cared enough to go that far, it made the work stand out even more and it proved you can bring some boogie into a boardroom.
The Formula: Play around with your pitch format. Rap it. Rhyme it. Create a video. Invite a special guest. Change locations. Make it impossible to forget.
The Wardrobe Condition
Unless you have to present at 9am, you should always be aware that your audience probably has sat through half a dozen meetings already. You have to snap them out of their fatigue from the moment you walk in.
A perfect example is when our very own Karel and Dieter dressed up like doctors when pitching for a healthcare client. They went all the way – stethoscopes, masks, gloves, the whole shebang.
It turned meeting number seven into performance number one. An event our client still brings up today.
The Formula: Come in with a bang. Start your presentation with something unexpected, ridiculous or daring. Be “the guys that dressed up like doctors” and they will never forget you.
The Cheese Cube Momentum
Too many times, people rush through a presentation, making it hard to keep up with every new bit of information. Allowing for a pause, a few minutes will do, gives your audience time to reflect and re-energize for the remainder of your presentation.
Pitching for a scientific institute, we built our creative concept around a cheese cube. Right after we presented our big idea, we took a break, got outside and handed out some cheese blocks. This short break and casual chat in between resulted in more open and precise feedback afterwards, and a successful pitch won!
The Formula: Build pauses into your presentation. Give people time to let your story sink in and get some air. It will recharge the room.
The Virtuoso Orchestration
Oh-oh-oooh-oh-oooooh.
That’s Coldplay’s Viva La Vida if you were wondering. Do you ever see yourself singing it along with 2,500 others? At a B2B marketing conference?
Neither did I.
But a Colombian keynote speaker-slash-virtuose got me as far. Throughout his pitch, he looped back to the same audience question: sing this song with me. First time, a few Chris Martin fans jumped up. Second time, the extraverts joined in. Third time, everybody sang along.
The Formula: I wouldn’t say the takeaway here is to ask your audience to sing. Rather, I believe it’s about finding a single item of interaction with your audience. Ask a simple question, get a few to engage and the rest will follow.
The Cardboard Consolidation
When you walk into a presentation, you expect to see slides. But slide decks are dangerous beings. Before you know it, you’re looking at a 200-piece bazooka, which is not the good kind of “blowing away the audience”.
So when you have the opportunity to present in-person, why not ditch the deck? Go for a completely slideless approach and bring everything together on an A2 cardboard.
If your idea is strong enough, you don’t need more space to explain it. It forces you to present only the essential part and shift the focus more towards what you are actually saying.
The Formula: Consolidate your pitch into a one pager. Cutting out everything but the essentials helps you deliver a more single-minded and coherent pitch.
So there you go, five proven formulas with sock-knocking-off potential. Use them, tweak them, and walk on that stage with sheer confidence. Remember, you never just present your pitch. You perform it.
Think we’re just full of it? Or want to see us try out our own formulas? Give us a ring – and a beat, fake beard, piano or cardboard – and we’ll put on a show!
