The key to creative thinking is intrinsically searching for novel ideas that can still be understood with minimal explanation. This is achieved by making unlikely connections between seemingly unrelated objects or concepts. PowerPoint is a powerful tool that can benefit from a spark of creativity and make for effective and memorable presentations.
Today, we’ll discuss how sprinkling some creativity into your slide deck can give you an edge over your competitors. First, let’s go deeper into what creativity does, and how it can help your next pitch succeed:
Connecting the Obscure
Creativity allows you to see connections you wouldn’t normally make. It’s common to chalk creativity up as something only some people are born with. This makes people conclude that this job should solely be for creative types. Worse, they might think that creativity is unnecessary since they’ll be presenting to fellow non-creative types.
However, it’s an important skill that makes a complex message easier to understand and harder to forget. You can even use a defined set of constant rules to have a distinct brand. A creative presentation — that is, one involving narratives and metaphors to break up the hard data — can trigger the audience’s right brain, putting them at ease and lowering their skepticism towards marketing campaigns.
Get Through the Noise
Grabbing people’s attentions can be difficult in a saturated market. But how do some businesses break out while others don’t? If you aren’t selling the same thing as someone else, then you might be selling it on the same platform.
The thing is, attention is like money – finite and valuable. That’s why you want to look and sound different from everyone else.
This is where creativity comes to the rescue. Scientists have long known that novelty promotes memory retention. It gives creativity an even bigger role to play in not only increasing the chances you’ll be seen and heard, but also the likelihood you’ll be remembered and contacted.
Creative Application
These unorthodox connections can be applied visually, textually, or verbally to better distinguish yourself from your competitors.
A fresh take on your slide design gives your PowerPoint presentations a unique look. With proper transitions and reasonable animations, you can use your visuals to complement your message. You can use these creative connections to come up with jokes, or relate your message with the help of metaphors or other idioms.
You can also find a parallel story or anecdote to give your speech a more emotional impact. Don’t get too caught up in attempting to push creativity. Forcing connections might disengage or worse, veer away from your company’s branding or your core message.
References
Fenker, Daniela and Hartmut Schütze. “Learning By Surprise.” Scientific American, December 17, 2008. Accessed May 25, 2015.
“How to Use the Persuasive Power of Metaphors.” Enchanting Marketing. 2013. Accessed July 28, 2015.
“Why Your Presentation Needs to Be These 3 Words.” SlideGenius, Inc. January 05, 2014. Accessed August 05, 2015.
