My Intro to Advertising Presentation @ Howard University

Recently I was given the privilege of speaking to an “Intro to Advertising” class at Howard University.  My first thought was that I would just go in and wing it. Play a couple agency reels, show off some cool work and then take questions. Two days before the presentation it dawned on me that college undergrads can be notoriously quiet when it comes to asking questions of a guest speaker, especially at a 9am class on Monday morning.

I decided I better put together a presentation that would inspire discussion as well as take up most of my allotted time.

So here is my presentation. I’d love to take credit for the whole thing but I can’t.  I borrowed style elements from Dave Nottoli and content from Francois Grouiller, Gareth Kay and Mike Arauz who are all planning/strategy rock stars and great sources of inspiration for me.  I also grabbed two slides from last year’s Razorfish Feed Report which is completely awesome.

Overall the presentation went really well. The students seemed pretty engaged (except the two who were sleeping in the back row) and asked a lot of great questions after I was done. All in all it was a pretty great day.