Twisted Toast created presentation art for Vodacom Group Limited CEO Pieter Uys’ interim results presentation on 7 November 2011
Twisted Toast was contracted by Belinda Williams, Group Executive: Investor Relations at Vodacom Group Limited to produce high quality presentation art for the company’s interim results presentation (for the period to end-September 2011). In order to break through the tedium typically associated with dry financial presentations and their endless stream of numbers, Twisted Toast and Vodacom opted to utilise Prezi, a zooming presentation software and storytelling tool.
The goal was that by combining Prezi’s innovative canvas feature and dynamic range of motion with high-quality artwork and creative design, the presentation would be engaging and captivate a critical audience for a full hour.
Working on financial results for a full service creative agency such as Twisted Toast poses a unique set of challenges. In addition to the need for absolute secrecy regarding confidential financial information, the work typically requires quick turnaround as results tend to be finalised close to the date of public release. In this case, Twisted Toast was briefed by the client early in the morning on Monday, 31 October 2011 with a complete delivery hard deadline for Friday of the same week.
Initial creative concept utilising smartphones as a presentation canvas, with content contained within quote blocks tied to applications on the phone’s screen.
The initial creative concept discussed with the client proposed using cellphones as the containing artwork for the presentation content. The initial thinking was to utilise pullout quotes on applications on the phone’s screens to contain information. This concept proved better in theory than practice. Progression within the Prezi framework ultimately yielded a first draft that incorporated pertinent financial information, spread across several phones. Although significant creative progress was still required, Twisted Toast was able to go from brief to creative concept to first working draft of the Prezi within the space of one day.
First draft of the presentation within Prezi. The quote block concept was discarded due to concerns over visual clutter and the information was instead presented on the phone screens directly.
The first progression of the presentation was presented to the client on Tuesday morning. Following additional discussion and briefing, work began on refining the creative direction and delivery, as well as additional refinement of the practical mechanics. The first step for Twisted Toast’s creative team was to work on more smartphone designs, which presented several challenges. For starters, none of the Twisted Toast team has an Android smartphone. Thankfully, the client was able to procure a Samsung Galaxy S which proved vital in ensuring the presentation artwork remained true to its user interface design and layout.
The next progression incorporated many of the creative changes implemented on the phone artwork. But by now, the canvas was becoming too cluttered.
The second draft Twisted Toast Prezi. Many of the elements are inactive and not part of the presentation path due to frequent addition and changing of creative elements at this stage of the process.
With further design refinements on the Wednesday after another session with the client at Twisted Toast HQ, it was time to progress the presentation art to a workable demonstration for internal feedback at Vodacom. 
In this fourth iteration of the presentation, content for all four of the main screens had been established and a cleaner flow between the phones settled on.
With a positive reception from Vodacom’s presentation team of CEO Pieter Uys and CFO Rob Shuter, Twisted Toast set to work on the Thursday with Belinda Williams, processing some changes and crafting all elements of the presentation. Many of the designs needed to be tweaked or refined and practical presentation performance issues ironed out. By the Friday all that remained was to tweak the art to ensure visual fidelity for all elements on Vodacom’s state-of-the-art high definition presentation equipment.
The presentation was delivered to an appreciative audience of financial analysts and media at 11:00 on Monday, 7 November 2011 at Vodacom world. It went down a storm!
View the final Twisted Toast Prezi for Vodacom Group Limited:
