I was running a "behind the scenes in advertising" mentoring session today with a group of sixth form students. I really enjoy doing things like this, it reminds me why I love the industry I am in. It is so easy to get bogged down in the day to day, the niggles and the frustrations that occur in our world of advertising/media/PR etc but when you have to tell a smart bunch of teenagers, who smell bullshit from 100m, what it is that is that makes your chosen profession so exciting it forces you to look up from your desk and remember the good bits. And there are so many good bits!
One of the things that we covered in our session today was presenting and how to engage an audience and tell stories that sell - sell a strategy, an idea or a campaign. One of the students presented to us and to illustrate his point he said, "you know that feeling when you have priority boarding on an aeroplane and you walk past everyone else in the queue and you just feel so special and a bit smug. That's the feeling that we want to bring to life." We just sat there nodding because we all know that feeling. And half the battle of any pitch type presentation is getting your audience onside and nodding. I was trying to think of the best example to give to the students and I still think that the Don Draper "Carousel" example is one of the very best examples that I can think of.
If you haven't seen it recently, take a look again. It's pitch genius.
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