Episode #163: How To Use Video In Your Presentation

Video is the refuge of rascals when presenting. The unskilled Japanese President tries to shift the attention off his miserable presentation skills, by diverting the focus of the audience to the video. Actually, it is a mighty relief in many ways from his dirge like, monotone, monochrome delivery. He was killing us slowly with his lifeless words. The idea is that the video will compensate for the presenter. It also takes up time, so the presenter can whip through the morass of their presentation and get out of there quicker. The scoundrel’s respite.

I personally try to avoid using video because it competes with my face. I want the full power of my expressions to be brought to bear, to convey the key messages I have for my audience. I want to monopolise the flow of the proceedings, so that it moves along with me in charge. There is a place for video though, when it makes sense and when it is reined in and kept under control.

Video is very versatile, as it can combine movement, music, images and still photographs very effectively. It can tell a short story very powerfully. It can bend time to its will. Emotions can be appealed to, physical dimensions made more impressive, speed made real and other people’s expressions and faces conscripted to serve the presenter’s messaging. It can bring both fantasy and reality to us in a powerful way. We are all used to watching video and movies on our phones, DVDs, etc., so we are open to the medium.

In certain industries and businesses, the visual aspect of their branding, packaging, design etc., really lends itself to employing a full video arsenal. Fast motion, slow motion, music combinations entertain the mind and stretch the imagination. Brands do this well, but corporate PR videos usually do it less well. In Japan, the latter is more often than not what we are subjected to, by the boring wannabe corporate Titan trying to command the stage.

Like anything, if it is done well it works. This is the issue though, do you have a great video to show or are you just showing a video for the sake of it? It is rare that a video would be specifically produced for a particular presentation. This normally means we are drawing on the video library of the firm and it would be a rare piece of luck to get the video content available, to chime with the speech you are giving. The planets rarely align so helpfully in real life and what we wind up doing is trying to slam the square peg into the round hole with what we have.

The reprobate presenter just picks up the whole video, as is, and plunks it down in the beginning of their talk. This means that we haven’t really connected with the audience as yet and we are distracting them from focusing on us, by breaking their concentration to look at a video. They usually have trouble actually showing the video because the loading process doesn’t work well on the laptop. They were in a slide deck, had to go out of that and then bring up the video. There may even be a link in the slide deck to the video, but it is hit and miss as to how often that works on the day. You become frustrated because the damn thing worked fine in the rehearsal and now for some mysterious reason, it refuses to work when the punters are assembled.

All of this fiddling about means you have now lost your connection with your audience, who are whipping out their phones to escape to the internet, because you are boring them with the tech. Once the video is over, we have to reconnect with the audience. If the video had a lot of excitement and energy and you present like a beached mullet, the contrast is mega. Everyone hopes you will disappear and more video will be rolled out instead, because it was a lot more interesting than you.

So we need to design the bridge into the video and the one out at the end. I have no memory of anyone doing this well by the way. Probably because the thought it was actually necessary, never occurred to them. We have to make sure the video is kept short and adds value to our message. We must dominate it, not the other way around.