Viacom Cognitive Media Platform

Viacom needed a platform for their media comparable to Netflix, and IBM developed a proof of concept that would satisfy this need. I led the team that worked to create a set of storytelling assets and pitch materials that brought this vision to life.

A three part story

I first worked with the account team to understand the technology, then directed a team of designers and wrote the copy that told the story. We told this story in three parts, or acts, to create a vision that would be both inspiring and technologically comprehensive, given the fact that our audience was mainly technologically based and biased. This story needed to be both respectful of that audience, but also speak to the why behind the platform, the customer, and how their life would be improved as a result of this technology. Working with a talented team of designers, we created a color palette and iconography that brought the whole thing together in a visually delightful slide deck and corresponding leave behind for the team at Viacom.

Part 1: The Experience

The first part of the presentation introduces Malcom, a typical Viacom customer in his normal day to day. The goal was to bring the vision to life in terms of Viacom customers, starting with the why of the technology, rather than the what or the how. This section carries the audience through the journey of Malcom discovering the new platform and used screen shots of a conceptual app to demonstrate the happy path he follows to get the most out of the experience.

Part 2: The Technology

Once the story of Malcom was complete, the audience is carried on into an explanation of the technology, in detail. One signature aspect of storytelling decks like this is that they typically involve complex graphics created by engineers. I worked with our design team to translate this complexity into a more visually spacious and comprehensible story that kept the technology front and center, without sacrificing visual standards of excellence.

Part 3: The Partnership

Finally, we used the final section to pull it all together and express why IBM was the right partner for the job, not just for Viacom, but for their customers. This section was significant and differentiated based on the fact that competitors will usually start with why they are the best for the job, versus why they are doing the job in the first place. We chose to appeal to the emotional side of things for this section, on behalf of their customers, rather than spending a lot of time proving our own credentials.