JUSTIN HERMAN

CHALLENGE: In 2016, a rapidly changing media landscape, it became apparent that CBS/Paramount’s sales-facing decks, emails and communications had subpar design attention paid to them, when compared to competitors. As we were in heated competition for market/revenue share, this took on increased importance especially as media buyers were compiling all potential partners in one master deck to review. We needed to not only stand out, but ensure that:

1. Our offerings were perceived as having undeniably premium value.
2. We viewed the recipients of the communications as ‘partners’ that we placed enormous value and care about our relationships with, as opposed to merely ‘clients’.
(Consultative Selling)

SOLUTION: I introduced the practice of giving our sales materials the same level of intention and refinement as the content creation side of the business.
Our materials began implementing the principles of information hierarchy, balance, timing, motion, weight etc. to achieve a ‘premium’ design language.

The first executive assignment with this approach was for CBSi's Studio 61's presentation at the 2017 IAB branded content summit. “It’s gotta blow the crowd away” was my direction.
I designed to be a seamless motion-designed experience, and the presentation was a huge success, with the IAB saying they'd never seen a presentation like this before.
While everyone was clicking through traditional abrupt start-stop Powerpoints, Cbsi brought down the house with this 3d fly-through seamless animation.