Assignment 5 - space feedback

Here's the stuff everyone did in response to this assignment. Some great stuff in here.

The winner is 'A'. I suspect you'll all agree.

Some overall thoughts:

1. Sometimes the best thing to do is get out of the way

Some brands don't need much help. Some products are just good. They don't need a ton of positioning or clever strategy. This is one of those. It's a trip to space for heaven's sake. How much do you need to dial that up? It's not one of a thousand yellow fat brands that needs some desperate extra idea to make anyone care. It's space travel.

This requires confidence and a light touch. A good name, a little bit of thought about some differentiating ideas but nothing dramatic. Let the service sell itself. It takes a smart, confident strategist to get out of the way, not to desperately try and prove your value.

2. Use the medium

Powerpoint is (should be) a brief, concise, visual tool. Use it like that. Don't use it like horizontal Word. And put some pictures in. Please. Compare the charts with pictures and the ones without. Which would you pay attention to? Brands aren't built entirely from words. Or even mostly from words. So if you're trying to sell an idea of a brand use all the tools at your disposal, think about font, layout, visuals. (But don't overcomplicate, remember that I might not be using the same version of Ppt that you're using. There's an art in building charts that travel well, without using dreaded pdfs.)

3. Pace yourself

You have five charts. What are the five most important things to get across? Should you spend three charts talking about your audience? Probably not. Husband your attention resources. Use your time well. Just because you've thought about something a lot, that doesn't mean you should talk about it a lot.

That's it

Nice work everyone. There's some great stuff in here. Have a look at other people's, you'll learn from it. Congrats to the author of 'A'. (If you send me address etc I'll send you your prizes.)

a.ppt b.ppt c.ppt d.ppt e.ppt f.ppt g.ppt h.ppt i.ppt j.ppt k.ppt l.ppt m.ppt

Comments

[Rob]

I'm surprised no one chose the concept of "when I grow up" or capturing childhood dreams. After all, spaceman is still in the top ten jobs selected by children.

[Chris]

Any chance of providing the PowerPoint slides in PDF format?

[Lucas]

Russell,
It´s really curious that two works had very similar concepts. The competition and broadcast thing. The "D" and "M" ones.
What do you think about that?

[brianaustin]

Maybe a bit naive here, but shoudn't the limit of 5 ppt slides be just "5 slides" - no builds? I begged off the assignment trying to figure out how to get it all in -- the successive builds in a number of the presentations quickly add up to a lot of content. So - if you really want to focus on brevity and message economy, you've got to clamp down on these end-around attempts to boost the content quotient. as always, $.02 opinion as it's your e-course. cheers...

[russell]

That's a fair point. I didn't read anything in slide view so I saw them all without the builds.

And I think I called anyone who wrote too much. But that's a good point. The rules will be duly ammended.

[russell]

Rob, that's true, about people who wanted to grow up to be spacemen. I think I might have gone for something along those lines. It's obvious that the low-hanging fruit here are space-geeks (who happen to be millionaires) - exactly those people.

[russell]

Lucas, I think it's surprising there weren't more similarities. There are very few original ideas - which makes the nuances of expression and persuasion all the more important.

[russell]

chris,

Not wanting to be rude, but, er, no, not soon anyway. Sorry.

Unless anyone wants to convert there stuff and send them me, I'll post them when I can.

[hidden persuader]

Blimey :( I've been missing a lot; Next assignment I'll try to give it a go. Once again Russell I cannot tell what a terrific thing you're doing through this online community. Keep the "flame alive", mate.

[Mike Pepper]

Russell,

Maybe it's too obvious but I was surprised no one tapped into;

A. Nostalgia
B. Going with your mates
C. The Moon orbit (the functional goal/bragging rights)

First thought for me was "shoot for the moon". Ultra Rich Baby Boomers getting together with their welathy buddies to prove they have the "right stuff". Played out JFK-space-race-meets- hollywood style but with a global, rather than just US flavour.

Nice assignment by the way...the lazy planner in me always starts with "how would Virgin do it", so you got round that nicely.