EOW Thought: Marketing Appendectomy

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Back after a brief weeklong break.

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Today’s thought is about why appendixes in presentations DO matter…

EOW Thought

By a show of hands that I cannot see…

…how many of you read the appendix of a marketing presentation?

Now, now, don’t all raise your hands at once.

I know some of you are shy, and not trying to out yourself as a marketing nerd before trying to get laid this weekend.

But I’d imagine of the 163 marketing and business professionals reading this, including my dad, the number is quite low.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the “appendix” is a section in a presentation after the formal last slide of the presentation.

For example, a marketing recommendation presentation might flow something like this:

Intro → campaign brief → research → strategic answer → implications → next steps → thank you! → appendix

Or a marketing reporting presentation might flow like:

Intro → campaign recap → what worked → what didn’t → what to keep, kill, continue → next steps → thank you! → appendix

Now, you might read both of those sample presentation flows and go, “huh! The main deck seems pretty solid. And you already said ‘thank you'….

…what could possibly be covered in the appendix that’s so important?”

And the answer is typically, “nothing.”

Appendixes are seen as useless.

They’re tucked away, hidden from view, slides there for show, not substance.

They are typically a combination of boring datapoints, massive amounts of small detail already covered earlier in the deck, or extra work the team did but couldn’t find a place for it in the presentation.

Essentially, a mix of “cover your ass” and “look how hard we worked” slides.

After all, the appendix is literally named after a useless bodily organ.

I would know, I had mine taken out. And I’m doing just fine! (I think.)

I’ve even had some bosses that said, eliminate the appendix.

After all, no one reads them anyway.

Anything that can be said in there, should have been said already.

But…

I’m a conspiracy theorist.

And I think if you want to be innovative in how you judge a marketing presentation:

Start with the appendix, and work backwards.

Because I am one of the few who reads appendixes.

And what I find are not useless slides.

But datapoints that are intentionally being obstructed from view.

You see, modern marketing is all about the numbers and the narrative.

There are the numbers of how a campaign performed.

Numbers and data on what an audience does.

Numbers on how a category is trending.

And then there is the narrative we create to sell our answers.

To do so, not every data point will fit the narrative perfectly.

So we contort the data. We omit the data. We use some data, but not others.

And where does the data that doesn’t fit the narrative go?

The appendix.

That useless little organ in the back of a deck, that no one reads anyway.

But if you read the appendix, you see it all there.

You might have to squint, but it becomes clear as day.

Data that the team felt bad about not including, in case they ever got called out on it.

Data that didn’t fit the story, but was still part of it, and might actually lead to a more interesting answer or approach for the business.

For example, maybe a marketing report says that the campaign went great! The team has never seen marketing drive such efficient results.

But you look in the appendix, and there it is. “Hold on,” you say. “It’s great we got more efficient, but the objective was recall. And our completed views and reach have never been lower. What gives?”

Let’s play this out and make analogy to 2023 pop culture.

What would the appendixes of these top stories say?

Barbie

Main presentation: Barbie is a modern triumph of exceptional media and marketing

Appendix: the CEO of Warner Bros, the company that brought the gift of Barbie to the world, is David Zaslav, the reviled media executive crushed for decisions like canning Batgirl and tarnishing the HBO brand. I’ve rarely seen his name mentioned in the same breadth as Barbie.

AB InBev

Story: Influencer campaign gone wrong causes Bud Light sales to plummet

Appendix: Bud Light sales had already been struggling for YEARS prior to this incident, as people flocked to hard seltzer, craft beer, etc. But the decline that was bubbling under the surface and precipitated this “scandal” is rarely mentioned.

Barbenheimer

Story: Attending Barbie and Oppenheimer back to back in one trip was the theater event of the summer

Appendix: The person who started this? Tom Cruise. But, for whatever reason, rarely does he get credit for jumpstarting another box office run.

So, please. Pay attention to the appendix.

Something is in there for a reason.

Something waiting to be seen, or interpreted differently, by your intelligent eyes.

And just like in real life, when the appendix bursts with information you had not seen or realized before, it could be painful.

It could disrupt what came before it.

But it’s better than just taking the numbers and narrative on face value.

Stay thinkin,
Danny