Agency Visit- Mike Peditto & Andrew Dubois

In one of our final weeks of our campaigns, we got the pleasure of having two seasoned industry pros, Mike Peddito and Andrew Dubois teach us the Do’s and Don’ts of delivering presentations. At this point, our Marketing for Good campaigns have been fully developed, launched and implemented, and we were going to have to deliver our presentations in a few short weeks. So this presentation couldn’t have come at a better time. This agency is easily the most beautiful of them all, our very own M-School classroom.

Mike kicked off the presentation and quickly led us to our first insight of the day; make sure your audience is clear of the takeaway of your presentation. More eloquently put in Mike’s own words, “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them”. Often during presentations, there’s an agenda slide in the beginning, outlining what is going to be talked about during the presentation, but it’s not often that the main points of the talk are truly driven home. I don't always see the purpose of having an agenda slide, it just kind of feels like a formality that disengages the audience as soon as you get their attention. But it was interesting to hear from a professional how important this can be so you don't lose an audience during the actual meat and potatoes. It’s so vital to repeat what you’d like your audience to take away from your presentation, because otherwise only some may get it.

After we discussed the need to fully drive our point home, we spent a little bit of time talking about the need to understand your audience. Mike gave us another great tip when he said, “No one gives a shit what you think, it has to be about the consumer, it has to be what’s right for them.” While abrasive at first, I really enjoyed this bit of advice. It’s an all too often trope that marketers fall into where they begin a presentation and just talk about themselves and what they thought. (everyone cares about what they think, not necessarily what you think. )

Finally, Andrew gave us some great advice on how to actually speak while giving a presentation. Often presenters can get so nervous that they begin to talk in “presentation talk” rather than just how a person would normally talk. Andrew reminded us of the importance to be a real human being, and talk like a real human being talks. People want to feel like they can relate to you, but they can’t do that if you’re talking in a pompous and distant manner.

This presentation came at a time when my team really needed it. We’d held our first activation, but received horrible results after our first round of our Pop-Up Shop, and we were feeling pretty disheartened. We weren't sure what our personal brand story was going to be, because we wanted to show our successes, but didn't know how to get past our glaring failures. Mike and Andrew helped us to use this as a learning experience rather than a failure, and that stories need to have some set backs in order for them to be interesting. Professor St. Claire was also very instrumental in this class period, insisting we reach back out to our participants to find out why our results turned out the way they did. Without the support and advice we had last class, I'm not sure what we'd be able to present on at all.