Yesterday I
presented my pitch for the ‘Affordable and Easy to Assemble Conflict Zone
Shelter’. I am relieved that the presentation went well seeing as I was
incredibly timorous of the exceedingly abstract task that was at hand. Rather
than seeking further clarification on the precise meaning of a ‘pitch’ my group
and I decided we would avoid resolving our nebulous state of mind and simply
follow the format of the ‘Mad Men Pitch’. Had there been enough time allocated to planning
the task, had the presentation been more trenchant.
The persuasion
techniques I incorporated into the pitch (more of an advertisement) were:
·
Basic persuasion technique- warm and fuzzy: A presentation rife of images displaying the sad lives
refugees live and images of children left without a home will cause the
audience to think of their own families and thus they will be struck by a wave
of empathy that will benefit the seller (me) and make it easier to sell our
product.
·
Intermediate
persuasion technique- Charisma:
The presenters had to maintain confidence and a winsome attitude. The audience
will be inexorable if the presenters did not display their confidence. With
confidence comes trust from the audience. The moment your audience trusts your
credibility, consider your product SOLD! This is incredibly important when you
are striving to convince an audience of a charity case/ product.
·
Intermediate
persuasion technique - rhetorical question: Rhetorical questions were used in order to emphasize the
exceedingly egregious global refugee crisis: this helped me subtly (yet
effectively) convince the audience that there is an exigent need for donations
(that can be done through our company) in order to make an impact on the world
as we strive to make the world a better place.
·
Intermediate
persuasion technique - simple solution: Our product is the simple solution to help improve the
lives of the refugees and and save the world!
o Dominance appeal: The audience gain a sense of power and
self worth through hearing that they can make a change in the world and that
they have the power to help those whom have been enervated due to poverty.
·
Advanced-
persuasion technique: timing-
The current global events and the international refugee crisis have caused this
ad to be relevant. Due to the Syrian refugee crisis and all the morose news of
anguish that has accompanied this event, the audience would naturally
experience a moment of hindsight that would ultimately lead to a wave of sad
emotions. Thus, this would reduce the barriers between the presenters and the audience,
which would then lead to an abundance of products being sold.
My audience was directed
towards adults whom had a stable life and a job, thus they had the financial
capacity of providing donations to help those in need.
The context I was provided with
was the Global Market.
Knowing my audience and context
enabled me to effectively craft my pitch in order to maximize its efficiency
and its rate of success.
Points of
improvement:
· Clarity of
voice: I kept vacillating between the paper in my hand and trying to maintain
eye contact with the audience. As our presentation pried on empathy, it would
have been best if I had memorized my lines. Having the paper in front of my
face and not knowing my lines sprouted a great deal of insecurity in my mind,
this was evident in the tone of my voice.
·
Script: the script was poorly written. The
content of the script was inaccurate. The structure of the script was poorly
assembled.
·
Vapid tone: I could not present at my full
potential as my insecurity held me back, thus my presenting voice was
undeniably vapid.
· Inaccurate
presentation: My presentation was inaccurate as my group approached the task in
a different manner to what was asked. A pitch is not an advertisement; it is
merely the mechanics of creating an advertisement.
Through
approaching my past presentation’s faults, I have learnt a valuable lesion that
will benefit my FOA: I must be meticulously read the task in in order to be
able to create a diligent and coherent presentation.
Watching the other groups present had truly kindled many presentation
ideas for my FOA’s and it gave me insight into what I could do to maximize the success of my FOA presentation.
I totally agree with you in terms of how watching the other groups present ignited ideas for my own presentations. It was really interesting to see the other techniques that some people used in order to make their presentations really stand out from the crowd.
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