In the third of the Studio’s Show Me the Money sessions organised by Thought Den and Jon Dovey, we have been exploring how we pitch our pervasive media products and companies. The sessions have been programmed to explore where the potential market for some of the output of the studio could lie.

The morning saw Thought Den taking us through some exercises which used analogies from other industries to describe ourselves. I had to describe the Studio in terms of the food industry:

We are yo sushi. We deal in distant promise: bringing a variety of out of reach tasty treats straight to you. We help you work out which sushi suits you or help you invent your own. We deliver exactly what you want, quickly and without fuss.

A useful task that made us boil down our key messages and interrogate the language we are using.  

In the afternoon we were joined by Ben Akin-Smith from Enable Interactive and Andy Parkhouse from Team Rubber as Science TV, Ralph Hoyte, Hazel Grian and Thought Den practised elevator pitches. Generalised the pitch feedback came down to:

  • Ethos, spirit etc is good but remember to say what it is you actually make/do
  • Are there any stats/metrics?
  • Use examples of projects that have been done with partners/brands that would be recognised/trusted (this communicates integrity and validity)
  • Hit them with the differentiation upfront: what is your USP? Are you the only company doing this?
  • Don’t be another ‘solutions expert’, evidence your claims of brilliance
  • Have the press said anything nice about you?
  • How do people feel when they experience your work?
  • Know who you are pitching to. What do they want to commission/buy/partner on?
  • Make the ask – what do you want from this conversation?
  • What benefits to you bring the person you are targeting? Demonstrate the value. Why is this better than spending money on something else?
  • What additional value does your project bring? i.e. games gather data on players – would this be of value to the person you are pitching at? Is there any ongoing value?

 


Some other interesting stuff that came up: stand up to talk about metrics – it opens up your diaphragm and gives you confidence, sit down to talk about experience and emotion. And incidentally, people are statistically more likely to take-in a message being delivered from their left.