Z PLUS Communications - Creative Cycle

Case study:

PLUS Communications

Project: Digital presentation design; visual storytelling

Summary

Creative Cycle helped PLUS Communications equip its clients with creative, dynamic digital presentations. These would serve as high-impact storytelling tools to help keynote speakers effectively engage with their audiences.

Challenge

PLUS Communications is a consulting firm that integrates public affairs, corporate communications, branding and digital solutions to help its clients tell their unique stories.
As part of this work, PLUS develops presentations for clients to use in their advocacy and marketing efforts.

The firm wanted to offer value beyond what a traditional PowerPoint deck could deliver — but without abandoning the Microsoft tools clients were used to. While still using PowerPoint, PLUS aimed to provide a powerful storytelling tool that would motivate audiences and communicate a client’s brand.

PLUS had speech-writing expertise and in-depth knowledge of its clients’ brands — but needed a creative and technical partner. This lead to PLUS teaming with Creative Cycle to manage the creative visualization of these decks.

Solution

PLUS and Creative Cycle created pitch decks for several mission-focused clients who would be presenting at high-profile events. Because these presentations would cover complex topics, they needed to be informative, yet easy to follow.

Learning and Ideation

All three parties — PLUS, its client and Creative Cycle — played a critical role in each engagement. First, PLUS worked directly with its client to craft the speech, verify facts, and brainstorm on the overall vision for the presentation. The firm then shared the speech with Creative Cycle in a standard PowerPoint deck. Our Creative Cycle team read the speech in its entirety to gain a thorough understanding of the client’s story. Then, our teams explored creative options that arose from the client brainstorm, with Creative Cycle providing additional recommendations.

Next, we applied the contents of the deck to a storyboard format. This helped our teams map out a visual narrative and determine an overarching theme — similar to how we would create a concept for an advertising campaign.

This process established trust and creative confidence between our two teams, and PLUS gave Creative Cycle open license to push beyond the norm with unconventional ideas.

Design Production

Our goal was to guide the audience through a complex topic in a way that was engaging and intuitive. Rather than pairing the spoken presentation with dry, text-heavy slides the audience would have to read, we created dynamic visuals that would naturally complement what the speaker was saying. This included layering and animations, the ability to zoom in and out, and smooth visual transitions.

Adding these effects required a clear understanding of the software’s limitations. This allowed us to find creative workarounds and push the limits of PowerPoint’s capabilities. Our expertise in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator also helped us identify creative treatments to explore in PowerPoint.

We worked with PLUS to ensure each design followed the client’s brand guidelines, taking care to use the appropriate typography and color palettes. Not only would this support brand consistency — it would help create an automatic association between the clients’ brand and the discussion topic. In turn, this would help position the client as a thought leader on the issue.

Results

By immersing ourselves in a client’s message and brand, we could authentically convey their story through visual design.

Close collaboration and strong client focus allowed our teams to produce 15+ uniquely compelling presentation decks. These empowered PLUS’ clients to present on complex issues in a way that was fun, inspiring and easy to understand. In this way, PLUS better enabled its clients to advance their missions and more effectively engage with stakeholders.

Together, Creative Cycle and PLUS explored how novel ideas could be conveyed using basic applications. This process uncovered a number of technical and creative possibilities. As a result, we helped clients take an innovative approach to presenting — while also meeting their needs for standard, familiar technologies.

By client request, PLUS and Creative Cycle will continue to produce presentations in support of clients’ ongoing speaking engagements.

Final Thoughts

Creative Cycle believes meaningful relationships deliver meaningful results. By intimately understanding our clients’ values, goals, attributes and needs, we’re able to design with empathy and purpose. Listening and learning are integral to our creative process — and collaborating with our clients is how we produce the most effective outcomes.