Management
Issue No. 59 - June/July 2011
Visual hooks make you memorable
by David Griggs
Margaret Thatcher cut a one pound note in half with a pair of scissors in an election speech to make the point that the Labour Government had halved the value of the pound while in Government.
At a TED conference recently, Bill Gates unscrewed a jar to let out mosquitoes into the auditorium.
Steve Jobs uses each new Apple product as a visual hook. When he launched the Macbook Air he held up a corporate envelope from which extracted the device to the delighted squeals of his audience.
Some of the simplest things can be visual hooks – I’ve seen people use a glass of water, a string of paper clips, even an empty Coke can.
These stage props, called Visual Hooks, add to the ‘stickability factor’ of the presentation, making it memorable.
We have all sat through presentations that are tedious, boring and really nothing more than an information dump.
We now live in an age of visual stimulation and presenters need to be much more aware of visual communication. This is when visual hooks can help.
First impressions are critical when your target audience is deciding whether they want to buy your product, or invest in your idea or business concept.
Presentations need to punch through viewer apathy and communicate exactly what your product does and how it solves the viewer’s problem. You can add high impact to your presentation by incorporating a visual hook that explains your product or service solving a problem in a convincing way.
Whether B2B, for internal presentation to members of the board or for marketing or training purposes, your presentations can help to create a good impression.
Even primitive man used visual hooks to get a message across. The dra...
