What Godzilla Can Teach About Presentation Design

The new Godzilla movie continues to roar its way to the top of the US box office. Earning an impressive $93.2 million on its debut weekend, the film featuring the CGI-version of the King of Monsters is doing even better overseas. Not bad for a “giant monster” that was originally played by an actor in a rubber suit.

Since its first appearance in the 1950s, Godzilla has been one of the most recognizable and influential Japanese pop culture symbols. In the United States, we have appropriated the “-zilla” part of its name as a suffix to refer to something grand or at least, aspires to be. It is also commonly used to refer to something hyperbolic (e.g., bridezilla).

In short, the suffix is an allusion to the power and massive size of Godzilla. Wouldn’t you want to have the same impact for your PowerPoint presentation? Then let’s see how you can create a PowerPoint-zilla for your demo or pitch.

Make It Larger than Life

This latest incarnation of Godzilla stands at 355 ft. tall or the same height as a 40-story building. That definitely makes this kaiju a force to be reckoned with. So how can you make your slides as imposing as Godzilla?

Obviously, creating physically large slides is out of the question. What you can do, however, is to design them with massive amounts of creativity. Hit your audience with a larger than life, high-quality images. Make your slides roar with a well-designed layout, animation, and sound effects.

Create Anticipation

In most Godzilla movies, the giant monster doesn’t appear right away. But you can certainly feel its presence in each scene. With every passing minute, you are at the edge of your seat. You’re anticipating the moment Godzilla will finally make its appearance. Never once you take your attention away from the screen.

The same can be true if you decide to invest on making your PowerPoint presentations powerful and impressive. The best presentations are those that excite the audience with great slides and masterful delivery.

Set up a Satisfying Payoff

As soon as Godzilla receives its screen time, all hell just breaks lose. As the kaiju confronts another of its kind and starts to beat the living daylights out each other, you basically know how it’s going to end. But somehow your mind is still blown even after Godzilla lets out its atomic breath and the credits start to roll.

With your monster presentation design, the trick is to hold your audience’s attention with a ‘promise’ that everything that you’re saying will make sense at the end. When you present an issue at the get-go, make sure that you have the solution by your last slide.