Trilokjit Sengupta's Blog: Anatomy of a murder

Anatomy of a murder. Or how to make a strategic PowerPoint presentation for budding planners.

Slide 1: Mention client name

Slide 2: Mention project

Slide 3: Insert inane statistic

Slide 4: Put India in perspective with photo of Sadhu with mobile phone

Slide 5: Establish Brand History

Slides 6-15: Tell client what he already knows about the category but make each fact (given to you by him in the first place) sound like a unique discovery.

Slide 16: Establish ‘new’ India with pictures of Dhoni lifting cup, Tata buying Jaguar and Mallika Sherawat

OR

Slide 16: Establish India as matriarchal society with pictures of Ma Kali, Durga and Mallika Sherawat.

Slide 17: Use lots of pictures with unconnected and unrelated statistics.

Slide 18: Show some recent trashy commercials to prove point.

Slide 19: Complicated pie charts with words that re-establish point made in earlier slides. Now pithy. Italicised. Bold.

Slide 20: Introduce the trump card. Some research downloaded from internet (date removed)

Slide 21-29: Analyse the said research to come up with stuff everyone already knows.

Slide 29-49: Back it up with your own dipstick, some coloured graphs and Vox Pops made up of guys from the accounts department. (Note: You can and will be irrelevant but never factually incorrect. The attempt is to show you have worked and then to confuse.)

Slide 50: Play a song. Increase volume while it plays.

Slide 51: Show a poster of Band Baja Baraat and reinforce the point

Slide 52: Introduce new words and phrases to describe the consumer e.g“Tradimodern”, “Socio-Insular” and “ExtraTerrestrial”

Slide 53: Ask client the same question he asked in the brief, but very poignantly.
(Make deeply serious face when slide is being shown and tap thrice on some surface.)

Slide 54: Astonish with some complicated proprietary planning tools.
(Use sleight of hand to block the vague sections and tenuous connections.)

Slide 55: Map the brand path and fit your strategy in the long-term goal.

Slide 56: Now do the same with a graphic.

Slide 57: Show Point A and the mythical Point B where the strategy will take the brand. Write Point B in an exciting new font with loads of words around it like “Exciting”, “Inclusive”, “Friendly”,  “Mother”.

Slide 58: Hence define the Target Audience by a phrase like “Selfless workaholic family man” or the “Modern traditional rebellious housewife”.

Slide 59: Now state the strategy cracked by the creative team.

Slide 60: Make it sound like you have discovered a new planet.

Slide 61: Facebook idea.

Slide 62: Make a wheel. Connect all the points using coloured lines with brand in the middle.

Slide 63: Define the brand using the new words.

Slide 64: Make a table. Write these brand words in one box. Colour it green. Call it a blue print. Use synonyms on all the boxes. Colour those red. Call them “brand enemies” or some such.

Slide 65: Thank You.
 

Trilokjit Sengupta is the CD and one of the founder members of METAL Communications. He has spent almost ten years in advertising and thinks it is enough.