The Client
The Qatar Public and Government Affairs team (which we'll call Q-PGA from now on) of Exxon Mobil. Yes, the giant billion dollar and multinational oil and gas corporation. That one.
The Problem
The Q-PGA team concluded a year-long campaign on preserving and protecting the dugong (or 'sea cow') population of Qatar. The team were asked to present their findings at an annual Exxon Mobil conference in Dallas, and was looking for a way to do it with impact and style.
The Solution
A beautifully co-created PowerPoint presentation with the works: a structured storyboard, stellar designs, and sleek animations.
sHARE iT
wHAT WE DID
Storyboarding
Presentation Design
Presentation Animations
Motion Graphics
WHAT WE USED
Microsoft PowerPoint
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
NOTE: The slides you're about to see were designed by Slide Cow in a co-creation process with the client. Because we really value client confidentiality, we've purposely not shown some of the slides of the final deck, and have also omitted some sensitive copy by replacing words with "Lorem Ipsum" dummy text fillers.
Where It All Started
The Q-PGA team had a pretty important presentation coming up at an annual Exxon Mobil conference in Dallas, Texas.
The team's presentation needed to communicate the results of a recent Exxon Mobil marketing campaign.
What was the marketing campaign about, you ask?
Dugongs (or, as other people call them, 'sea cows'.)
Yeah, we had no idea what they were either. But a quick Google search fixed that for us.
Why Dugongs, Though?
In 2013, Exxon Mobil teamed up with a few other research and state organizations to study Qatar's dugong population for five or so years.
The results of that study fueled a marketing and PR campaign to preserve and protect the dugong species. And yeah,
a campaign like this is warranted because the world-wide dugong population is on the decline.
Once the Slide Cow team got talking with the Q-PGA team, one thing became exceedingly clear: The Q-PGA team are absolutely amazing at what they do.
Not only did the team manage to think ahead and launch their campaign during the Qatar Exxon Mobil Open 2019, one of the world's biggest tennis tournaments.
But the team went ahead and played the appeal game from the very beginning. They personified the problem by creating adorable dugong mascots. And it's those same mascots that helps deeply connect to the welfare of the dugong population.
Bravo, Exxon Mobil.
The Goal of the Deck
Exxon Mobil's PGA-Q team were clear about what they wanted.
"We want something crazy. We want this presentation to be the best presentation at that conference. We want people to know just how good our work is, and inspire them to take the same steps we did with their own causes and campaigns."
How can we decline a challenge like that?
Storyboarding
We initially structured a narrative using the results of the marketing campaign. But we weren't convinced that this approach was enough to tell a remarkable story.
So we scrapped the storyboard and started over.
The second time around, we wanted to answer a simple question: How can we get Exxon Mobil's PGA-Q team to inspire everyone in that room to do to do something remarkable?
Once we narrowed the content down to the emotional appeal, things got much easier.
Our focus wasn't just on the fear of the dugong population being on the decline. It was more about the pride of setting an example for the community and the passion of doing something for the greater good.
By narrowing down on what people were supposed to feel, as opposed to just constantly dishing out facts, we managed to create a narrative that invited the audience to truly care about a worthy cause.
Design
We opted for an 'under-the-ocean' look and feel.
The challenge of taking this route? Finding a balance between realistic expression and abstract illustration. We didn't want this to be a hyper-realistic presentation, but we didn't want this to be knock-off copy of The Little Mermaid either.
We settled on something a little outspoken, charming, and outright beautiful.
Animation
We really put PowerPoint to the test with some of the animations we implemented. Nothing was held back.
Every animation sequence was implemented with the story in mind. The animations were configured to to suit both the speakers' pace, and the audience's understanding.
After all, what's the point of designing a presentation that the speaker can't keep track of? Even worse, what if the audience can't understand anything because everything's flying all over the place?
End result? Animations so sleek they could give someone a paper cut. Watch the video to see what we did.
How'd It Go?
We really (and we mean REALLY) wanted to know how the presentation went on game day. So once the PGA-Q team did their thing in Dallas, Yoyo - the Slide Cow CEO - didn't hesitate to reach out.
The leader of the PGA-Q team replied, and again, we're quoting word for word:
"It was the best presentation in the house. I mean, everybody was stopping us. 130 people were walking with me and the team, and they all wanted us to help them with another environmental campaign after watching what we presented. It was incredible.
I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for all your support. It was the best presentation we've ever delivered, and we really did a great job. The visuals were very creative, everybody noted that. It was worth every penny, and all the time we invested into it. Thank you."
