Legacy Foundation Business and Leadership

Archive for June, 2011

Branding is no longer simply about visual appeal (or the cherry in the apple pie example, as given in my earlier article). Unfortunately, many graphic design firms who position themselves as advertising agencies believe that branding your corporate identity is all about developing great looking visual solutions.

However, there is much more to branding than just looking good. Particularly in this web 2.0 eras, where a powerful web presence has become a vital ingredient of your branding strategy, developing the right media mix holds the key to building powerful brand equity.

<b>In other words, a right media mix would mean: </b>

•    Creative design solutions (the design, color, and content of your ads, marketing collateral and website enhance your brand equity, attract customers, and generate sales)
•    Web development (every product/service worth its name has a web presence these days, some have truly interactive, animated sites encouraging customer involvement),
•    Viral marketing (vitally important in today’s age of social networking, tagging, podcasting, blogs, forums, wikis and what have you)
•    Television commercial production, print media advertising (traditional media cannot be overlooked)
•    Strategic films (have become necessary elements of roadshows, exibhitions and other promotional campaigns)
•    Corporate video production (a very important tool for branding your corporate identity)
•    Direct marketing (marketing collaterals need to be just as effective and resonant with the overall branding scheme as the communicate directly with the customer)
•    Outdoor advertising (hoardings, roadshows, participations in business fairs, exhibitions, etc)

There are some interactive advertising agencies that have recognized the need of the hour – developing creative design solutions that employ user-centric investigation and involve critical and systematic thinking. User-centric means understanding of needs and priorities of end user; the clients’ customers, their channel partners, users, and brand communities.

So if you want to register your brand as one that is synonymous with customer loyalty, you must develop a complete package, keeping the customer as the prime objective and organizing product stories around the way they prefer to learn about, compare, select and confirm purchases, connecting brands and their experiences.

As an easy and dynamic presentation tool, MS PowerPoint has been a popular alternative to the traditional blackboard aid in class. For teachers, a well-planned PowerPoint presentation appeals more to students of this digital epoch than a plain lecture without illustration. For students, a class report or research project delicately composed in PowerPoint is always more organized in look and more convenient for archive. So how to make and share a wonderful class presentation? In this post, you will find useful tips on creation and distribution of class PowerPoint presentations.

Section I: Create an Effective PowerPoint presentation

We know there are geniuses of speech, but there are very few. Most of us may fear to speak in public unless very very well-prepared. Never risk a successful class to a hasty PowerPoint presentation. Instead, build a written summary of your course carefully in PowerPoint. Here are several points you should bear in mind when composing a class presentation.

1. Define the topic

To give a persuasive presentation, you need to keep in mind what you are conveying to the audience. Make sure you have a thorough understanding of the class topic. How long do you have to make your presentation? Are you able to use visual aids or handouts? You don’t have to become an expert, or read every book or website ever written about your topic, but you should be able to answer any questions your teacher or classmates might give you.

2. Know the style

To be classic or to be trendy? It depends on both the course stuff and the targeted audience. For example, if you are going to tell a serious subject to a group of college students, take on a PowerPoint template of lofty color; if it is a DIY class to kids less than 8, employ a colorful background along with funny animations in your presentation. Be sure the style and the subject matches in the class presentation. Click here for free PowerPoint templates and backgrounds

3. Picture & animate it

As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand of words”. So do animations, video clips, and background sounds. A decent use of all those visual effects can bring a dramatic impact to your class PowerPoint presentation. Try to add some dynamics to set your class presentation off.

4. Less is more

The key is simplicity. Use less stuff to convey more ideas. Avoid abuse of PowerPoint components, esp. animations and wipes. Include in each slide points of 3-7, in each bullet words of 3-7. Never put all points in one slide at once, or the audience will lose interest in listening further to your presentation. Use simple sentences rather than long complete ones. Keep one theme or background, one font set and one text animation effect.

5. Edit by rehearsal

Rehearse your class presentation once done. Ask someone to comment on your rehearsal so that you can edit the PPT presentation for improvement.

Section II: Distribute a Sound Class PowerPoint Presentation

Creating a good PowerPoint presentation is the first step. Remember to practice over and over your class PowerPoint presentation until to a perfect extent. The next thing is distribution of the class presentation. How to distribute it depends on several factors, where the class PowerPoint presentation is made, where it is going to display, and how many students or classmates will attend to your class, etc.

Here are 5 ways to distribute a PowerPoint masterpiece.

1. Save your class PowerPoint file on the same computer

If your class presentation is created at and is to be distributed with the same computer (usu. your laptop), then simply leave it there. But by this method, you may run on certain risks of the vulnerable PowerPoint – computer corruption, Internet disconnection, and virus attacks. Many people do that, however, it is not recommended, especially when your class PowerPoint presentation is of critical importance.

2. Simply e-mail your class PowerPoint file

It is a PowerPoint presentation of homework, and you are required to email to your teacher’s account for review. In that case, simply e-mail the presentation.

Note -

Don’t email a class presentation unless you are sure that the recipient use the same OS (don’t email from a PC to a Mac), the same version or later of PowerPoint program. Some people don’t have MS PowerPoint installed on their computers, nor do they have a proper PowerPoint Viewer to read your class presentation. Don’t forget to include the whole PowerPoint components (the presentation itself, the sound file, the video file if there is any) in the same folder before zipping it to email. Otherwise, the sounds or video clips embedded in your class presentation will not play on the recipient’s computer. And don’t email your class PowerPoint presentation if you are afraid of unwanted modification by others. Read the rest of this entry »

Founding a business in big and modern country as United Kingdom could be painstaking and simple at once. It is considered simple, when you are so sure that your business is going to be profitable and well developed. Besides, when you have already gathered some potential clients, even before your business started, founding a business is getting much simpler. However, founding a business is not the matter of clients and profits; this is one thing that makes is painstaking.

Founding a business is also the matter of having the right and suitable office building; it is also the matter of managing all property-related stuffs properly. Most businesspersons have ended up to undeveloped business and even bankruptcy, only after they chose the wrong office building. For this reason, it is suggested that you get some helps from commercial property agents, to deal with these property stuffs. A commercial property agent is business agent that is specifically helping in business properties.

Commercial property agents are principally backing up business owners in handling their need toward a business property, mainly in finding the most suitable property –in this case, the suitable office building. Property agents, especially the experienced and reputable ones, will provide some recommendations on the property sales and lettings. To make sure whether the building is suitable or not, a good property agent should also provide the detailed description of the recommended buildings.