Campaign Concept Presentation Script: What to Say, in Order

Key Takeaways

• Storyflow is where to run a campaign concept presentation script: one wall per spoken beat in presentation mode, the talk track in a document beside the walls, and the client's decisions written on the same board before anyone leaves the room.
• The nine beats run in this order: opening line, the problem in the client's words, insight, big idea, key visual, executions, rollout, cost, close. Each has a length, a speaker, a wall on screen and a question that usually follows it.
• Say the big idea out loud before minute 7 of a 30-minute slot. The run-up is one minute of opening, two of problem and two of insight, with two minutes of slack for a late start.
• Script to time, not to slides. At 125 to 150 spoken words a minute, the speech pace Lumen Learning's open Public Speaking textbook recommends, a 30-minute slot holds about 3,000 words of talk track once you allow for pauses, film playback and interruptions.
• Presenting a concept makes it clear; selling a concept gets a decision. Selling adds three things to the script: the client's own words in the problem, a cost beat in tiers, and a close that names the decision, its owner and its date.
• Every speaker hands over with a written line, so the room never hears dead air between strategist and creative director.
• Storyflow has no presenter view or speaker notes, so print the talk track or read it from a second device, and send a dated board PDF plus the view-only link after the meeting.

The Talk Track in Nine Beats: What to Say, in Order

You have the work. The insight is sharp, the film script is tight, the key visual made the creative director go quiet. Then the meeting starts, the strategist talks for twelve minutes, the client's marketing director checks her phone, and the idea arrives to a room that has already decided it is tired. Concept presentations rarely fail on the idea. They fail on the order and the length of what gets said before and after it.

This is the spoken script, beat by beat: the lines, the length, who says them, what is on screen, and the question that comes next. It assumes a 30-minute presenting slot inside a 45 or 60-minute meeting, which is the common shape; the 9-part slide order covers what goes on each slide, and this guide covers what comes out of your mouth while it is up.

1. Open in one minute. Thank the room, restate the job in one sentence and say what you will ask them to decide at the end. In Storyflow, the first wall holds the client's objective sentence, not your campaign name.
2. Restate the problem in the client's words. Two minutes. Quote the brief back, then name the one number that matters, and make it theirs. In Storyflow, a quote card from the brief document sits on wall two.
3. Give the insight. Two minutes, one sentence, up to three pieces of evidence, then a pause.
4. Say the big idea. Before minute 7. Say it, stop for three seconds, say it again. In Storyflow, wall four holds the idea line alone.
5. Show the key visual. Two to three minutes, with a manifesto read aloud if you have one.
6. Walk the executions. Nine minutes for three to five executions, each shown in place, film first. In Storyflow, give each execution its own wall so presentation mode steps through them one at a time.
7. Show the rollout. Four minutes: phases, weeks and where each execution runs.
8. Name the cost in tiers. Three minutes, three scope tiers, what each buys and what each drops.
9. Close on the decision. Two minutes: your recommendation, the decisions needed today, who owns each and by when. In Storyflow, the last wall is the decision wall, filled in during the meeting.

That is about 27 minutes of talk and three of spare time. The spare time is not optional. A meeting that starts four minutes late and loses two to a screen-share problem has spent it before beat 1.

The Storyflow 7-Minute Rule

The rule, defined

The Storyflow 7-Minute Rule is our editorial recommendation, not a research finding: in a 30-minute presenting slot, the big idea is said out loud before minute 7, from the fourth wall of a Storyflow board in presentation mode. Everything before it (opening, problem, insight) fits inside five minutes, and the remaining two minutes absorb the late start, the delayed attendee and the first interruption.

Why seven, and not ten or fifteen

The number comes from the run-up's own arithmetic. One minute of opening at a presenting pace of 125 to 150 words a minute, the range Lumen Learning's open textbook Public Speaking recommends for a speech, is about 130 words: enough to thank the room, state the job and name the decision. Two minutes is enough to quote the brief and land one number. Two more is enough for one insight and its evidence. Five minutes of setup in a 30-minute slot is a sixth of the time, which leaves the idea, the work and the decision the other five sixths.

There is a memory reason too. The serial-position effect describes how people recall the first and last items of a sequence better than the middle. An idea said at minute 15 of 30 lands in the middle, where recall is weakest. An idea said at minute 6 sits close to the start, and the close at minute 28 sits at the end, where the decision belongs.

How the clock moves with the slot

The rule scales with the slot: the run-up stays about a sixth of the presenting time, and the idea always lands inside the first quarter.

In Storyflow, write the minute mark into each wall's heading ("04 BIG IDEA, by 0:07") so the presenter sees the clock on the board while rehearsing.

When to break it

Break the rule when the idea is instantly legible and the client already trusts the strategy: an existing client, a brief everyone in the room wrote together, a second-round presentation. Then open cold on the film or the key visual and explain afterwards. Keep the rule for first presentations, new-business pitches and any room with a senior person who did not write the brief, because that person needs the problem before the idea makes sense.

Presenting a Concept vs Selling a Concept

A presented concept is understood; a sold concept is decided. In Storyflow, the difference lives on the board: presenting needs the concept walls, and selling adds the client's quoted words, the cost tiers and a decision wall that is filled in before the meeting ends.

Three concepts with their status, the brief and the feedback rounds on one board: the shape a selling script steps through.

Presenting is the floor, not the job

Most agency presentations are good at presenting. The work is clear, the slides are clean and the team is rehearsed. What fails is the step from "the client understood it" to "the client chose it". That step is in the script, not in the work: a sentence that ties the idea to the client's number, a cost beat that makes the choice concrete, and a close that asks for a specific decision. The IPA's Good Pitch guidance describes choosing an agency as finding the right talent, chemistry and shared values, and points agencies to choosing the right pitch team: a room buys from the people as well as from the slides.

Selling is not pushing

Selling a concept does not mean talking faster or repeating the idea five times. It means removing the reasons to delay. Every unanswered question about cost, timing or risk becomes "let us take it away", and every "take it away" is a decision made in a room you are not in. The script's job is to make the decision possible today, not to make the work sound better.

The test for which one your script is doing

Read your close aloud. If it ends with a question about feelings ("What do you think?", "Any thoughts?"), the script presents. If it ends with a question that has a yes or no answer and a date ("Can we agree Core Plus today so the shoot books for the 3rd?"), it sells.

Beat 1 of 9: The Opening Line

Length: 60 seconds, about 130 words. Speaker: the account lead, or whoever owns the relationship. On screen: wall 1, the client's objective in one sentence. Purpose: state the job and the decision, so the room listens for the right thing.

The opening is not the moment for credentials, a team slide or an agenda with eleven items. The client has hired you or invited you; they know who you are. They do not yet know what you will ask of them, and that is what they listen for.

Sample lines for the opening minute

• "You asked us for one thing: more families on the train at weekends, without cutting the fare. In the next 30 minutes we will show you one idea that does it."
• "At the end we will ask you to choose a scope, so production can start on the 3rd."
• "Stop us any time. If you can, hold the cost questions for about minute 24, because that is where the numbers are."
• "Ines will take you through the idea, Tomas will show you why it works, and I will come back at the end for the decision."

Three of those four sentences do the selling: the job, the decision and the time it arrives. The fourth names the speakers, which saves every handover from starting with "Hi, I'm".

The question that usually comes next

"Did you get the research we sent last week?" or "Is this the team who will run it?" Answer in one line and move on: "Yes, and the two numbers we used from it are on the next wall." Do not let the opening turn into a briefing review; if the brief has changed since you received it, that conversation belongs before the meeting, not inside it.

Beat 2 of 9: The Problem in the Client's Words

Length: two minutes, about 260 words. Speaker: the strategist. On screen: wall 2, a quote from the brief and one number. Purpose: prove you understood the job before you show anything.

A creative brief usually carries the objective, the audience, the key insight, the core message, mandatories, deliverables, budget and who approves. Quote the objective exactly as the client wrote it, in quotation marks, on screen. Then name the number the client gave you (a target, a gap, a share) and say it is theirs. The room relaxes when it hears its own sentence, and every later beat can point back to it.

Sample lines for the problem

• "In the brief you wrote: 'grow weekend leisure journeys among households who own a car, without discounting.' We read that sentence a lot."
• "The number we kept coming back to is yours: weekend trains run at about a third full. The seats exist. The people choose the car."
• "So the problem is not awareness. Everyone knows the train exists. The problem is that the car feels like the default for a family day out."
• "That last sentence is what the rest of this presentation answers."

Notice what is missing: no market sizing, no competitor review, no category trends. If the client needs those, they go in the appendix wall. The problem beat ends on one sentence that the idea will answer.

The question that usually comes next

"Where does the third-full figure come from?" Have the source ready on the wall, in small type under the number: the client's own document, page and date. If the number came from your own research, say so and say how. A challenged number in minute 2 colours every number after it, including the cost.

The brief laid out as walls: the objective and insight walls are where beats 2 and 3 quote from.

Beat 3 of 9: The Insight

Length: two minutes, about 260 words including a pause. Speaker: the strategist. On screen: wall 3, the insight in one sentence and up to three evidence cards. Purpose: give the client a reason to believe before they see the idea.

An insight is a true thing about people that the client has not acted on. It is one sentence. If you have two, choose; two insights in one presentation compete, and the idea can only answer one.

Sample lines for the insight

• "Here is what we found when we sat with families planning a Saturday."
• "The car makes the day out possible. It also makes one adult the driver for the whole day: parking, traffic, the route home, no glass of wine at lunch."
• "One father told us, 'I don't get a day out. I get a day of driving.'"
• Pause for three seconds. Then: "The train does not compete with the car on speed. It competes on who gets the day off."

The evidence cards carry the proof: one quote, one behaviour, one figure. Say the quote out loud, because a real person's sentence lands harder than any summary. Keep the figures you do not say on the card for anyone who reads the board later.

The question that usually comes next

"How many families did you speak to?" Answer with the honest number and the method, and do not inflate it: "Fourteen households over two weekends, plus the booking data in your brief." Clients forgive a small sample stated plainly. They do not forgive a big claim that falls apart when their insight team reads the appendix.

Beat 4 of 9: The Big Idea

Length: one to two minutes, about 150 words plus silence. Speaker: the creative director. On screen: wall 4, the idea line and nothing else. Purpose: give the room one sentence to remember and repeat.

An advertising campaign is a series of messages that share a single idea and theme, which is why this beat carries more weight than its length suggests. Everything after it is evidence that the idea works across formats. The idea's wall comes fourth and is said before minute 7.

Sample lines for the reveal

• "So here is the idea." Advance to wall 4. Say nothing for two seconds while they read.
• "Saturday Starts at the Station."
• Pause for three seconds. "Saturday Starts at the Station. The day out begins the moment nobody has to drive."
• "Everything you are about to see shows that moment: the first ten minutes of a family day when the driver gets to be a passenger."

Say the line twice and stop. Do not explain the wordplay, list its meanings or justify the font. If the idea needs a paragraph to make sense, the paragraph belongs to the insight beat, and the idea line needs another draft. An elevator pitch runs 30 seconds to two minutes for a whole business; an idea gets the short end of that.

The question that usually comes next

Often silence, which is good. Let it sit for a beat before the next wall. Sometimes "Say that again?", which is also good: say it again, slowly. If someone asks "Is that the tagline?", answer precisely: "It is the idea. The line on the posters may change; the idea does not."

Beat 5 of 9: The Key Visual and the Manifesto

Length: two to three minutes, a 100-word manifesto read in about 45 seconds. Speaker: the creative director or the art director. On screen: wall 5, the key visual and, if you have one, the manifesto set in type. Purpose: show what the idea looks and sounds like before any single execution.

The key visual is the picture the campaign will be remembered by. The manifesto is a short piece of copy, read aloud, that sets the tone. Not every campaign needs a manifesto; a campaign with a strong film or a single line often does better without one. If you read one, read it slowly and do not look at the client while you do.

Sample lines for the key visual

• "This is the picture that carries it. A father in the window seat, eyes closed, the hills going past, a child asleep on his arm."
• "It is shot in available light, early in the morning, real families, not models. It is a rough: we borrowed the photograph to show the light."
• Before the manifesto: "This is how the campaign sounds. Forty seconds."
• After it: "That tone runs through every piece you will see next."

Mark every borrowed image as a rough, on the wall and out loud. A client who falls in love with a stock photograph will compare the shoot to it.

The question that usually comes next

"Is that the final photography?" Answer: "No. That is a reference for the light and the casting. Here is what the shoot changes." Point to the casting note on the wall. On a Storyflow board, the campaign visual direction wall holds the light, casting and palette notes the shoot will follow.

A key visual wall with its palette beside it: the client sees the look before any single ad.

Beat 6 of 9: The Executions

Length: nine minutes for three to five executions, about 1,000 words plus film playback. Speaker: the creative pair, art director and copywriter, alternating. On screen: one wall per execution. Purpose: prove the idea works in the formats the client is buying.

This is the only beat allowed to grow, and the one that most needs a running order. Show the most important execution first, which is usually the film or the hero social piece, then the supporting ones. Three executions is the usual number: the rule of three holds that three is the smallest number that makes a pattern, and a pattern is what proves an idea travels. In Storyflow, give each execution its own wall, so presentation mode steps through them one at a time and nobody reads ahead.

Sample lines for a film you have not shot

• "Thirty seconds. We open on the dashboard of a car in traffic, the sound of a satnav. Five seconds in, cut to silence and a train window."
• "That cut is the whole idea, and it happens before the skip button appears."
• "The 15 and the 6 are cut from the same frames: the 6 is just the cut and the line."
• "Here are the frames." Step through the storyboard frames one at a time, reading the action under each.

The first five seconds matter more than the rest for online video: YouTube's help on video ad formats says viewers can skip a skippable in-stream ad after 5 seconds, and bumper ads last between 5 and 6 seconds. Say what happens in those five seconds out loud. For a storyboard walk-through, presenting a storyboard to a client covers the frame-by-frame craft.

Sample lines for posters and social

• Outdoor: "Motorway-facing sites, Friday afternoons. Three words: 'Nobody's driving Saturday.' The train is the picture, the car is the reader."
• Social: "A series called First Hour. Families film the first hour of their day out on the train. We seed eight, then repost theirs."
• Each time, show it in place: the poster on a roadside photo, the post inside a phone frame, at the real ratio.

The question that usually comes next

"Can it run without the film?" Have the answer in the order you showed them: "Yes. The posters and First Hour stand alone. The film is what makes it famous; the other two are what make it work." That sentence prepares the cost beat, where the film is usually the first thing a smaller tier drops.

Beat 7 of 9: The Rollout

Length: four minutes, about 450 words. Speaker: the strategist or comms planner. On screen: wall 9, a phase table with weeks and channels. Purpose: show the client how the work runs in time, and how they will know it worked.

The rollout turns a set of executions into a campaign. Name the phases (tease, launch, sustain is the common shape), the weeks, which execution runs where, and the one or two measures you would hold the work to. Effectiveness awards judge the same way: Effie's judging page says scores are "weighted in favor of results, but every pillar counts", which is a good reminder that a client buying an idea is also buying an outcome.

Sample lines for the rollout

• "Three phases over twelve weeks. Weeks one and two, the posters only, Friday afternoons. Weeks three to six, the film and First Hour. Weeks seven to twelve, First Hour on its own, fed by real families."
• "We would judge it on one number: weekend journeys from the stations near the poster sites, against the same weeks last year."
• "If the posters do not move that number by week four, we change the sites, not the idea."

The question that usually comes next

"What if we launch later?" or "Can we start with social?" Answer with the trade-off, not a yes: "You can. Starting with social saves the outdoor cost in the first two weeks, and you lose the Friday reminder that makes people plan." In Storyflow, keep the rollout as a table with date cells, rows kept in date order, because there is no calendar view or Gantt chart to drag phases around in.

Phases as columns, tasks beside them: the rollout wall reads left to right in the same order the talk track says it.

Beat 8 of 9: The Cost, in Three Tiers

Length: three minutes, about 350 words. Speaker: the account lead, with the producer if production is the bulk of the cost. On screen: wall 10, a table of three tiers. Purpose: make the choice concrete enough to decide today.

Saying the cost in the room is the single biggest difference between presenting and selling. Industry guidance on production pitches, from the IPA, APA and ISBA, says scripts should be developed and briefed with a viable budget, and pitches should be within that budget. If the concept fits the budget, say so plainly. If the full version does not, say which tier does.

Sample lines for the cost beat

• "There are three ways to buy this. Each one is the same idea; they differ in how loud it is."
• "Core: posters and First Hour. It lands the idea and moves the number. Core Plus adds the film, which is what makes people talk about it. Full adds the station takeovers in the four biggest stations."
• "We recommend Core Plus. It is inside the budget in your brief, with a contingency."
• "What each tier drops is on the right of the table, so nobody is surprised later."

Name what each tier drops in the same breath as what it buys. A cheaper tier that silently loses the idea's best execution is a trap you set for yourself at the first review.

The question that usually comes next

"Can we do Core but keep the film?" This is a negotiation, so answer with the trade, not a discount: "Yes, if we cut First Hour from eight seeded films to four and start it in week five." Have two of those trades worked out before the meeting.

Beat 9 of 9: The Close

Length: two minutes, about 200 words. Speaker: the account lead, or the creative director if they own the client. On screen: wall 11, the decision wall with two or three decisions, owners and dates. Purpose: leave with a decision or a dated path to one.

The peak-end rule describes how people judge an experience mostly by its most intense moment and its end. The peak of a concept presentation is the idea and the film. The end is this beat, and it is the one most teams improvise.

Sample lines for the close

• "So: one idea, Saturday Starts at the Station, in three executions, in three tiers. We recommend Core Plus."
• "To start production on the 3rd, we need two decisions today: the tier, and who signs off the film script."
• "If you need to take it to your board, let us agree now what you will show them, and we will send the board link and a PDF tonight."
• "Thank you. Questions?" Only now.

Ask for no more than three decisions. Working memory research attributes a capacity of about four chunks to young adults, so a close with six asks leaves the room remembering two of them. Write each decision on the wall as it is made, with the person's name and the date.

The question that usually comes next

"We need to take this to the leadership team." Answer: "Of course. Who will be in that room, and what will they ask first?" Then offer to build the version they will see. For what happens in the room you are not in, how agencies present campaign concepts covers the forward package in full.

After the close, the decisions become cards with owners and dates, on a board the account team already uses.

The Full Script on One Page: A Copyable Talk-Track Template

Here is the talk track for the worked example below, filled in for the fictional agency Hollis & Vane presenting to the fictional regional train operator Kestrel Rail. Copy the columns, replace the rows. The clock assumes a 30-minute slot that starts on time; the last two rows are the spare time and the appendix.

How to fill it in

Write the spoken-words column first, from your budget: minutes multiplied by about 130. Then write each first line and each handoff line word for word, because those are the two sentences a nervous presenter forgets. Everything between them can be bullet points. In Storyflow, keep this table as a table element on the board beside the walls, and the full script in a document next to it, so the team edits one version.

Worked Example: Hollis & Vane Present "Saturday Starts at the Station" to Kestrel Rail

The agency, the client and every figure here are fictional and illustrative. Kestrel Rail runs regional trains out of a mid-size city and wants more weekend leisure journeys from households who own a car, without discounting. Hollis & Vane has 30 minutes inside a 60-minute meeting with the marketing director, the head of revenue and a brand manager.

The board before the meeting

The team builds one Storyflow board for the presentation. The brief sits as a document on the left. Twelve walls run left to right: the job, the client's words and number, the insight, the idea, the key visual, three executions, the rollout, the cost tiers, the decision wall, and an appendix wall with the research summary, two rejected routes and the media plan. The talk track lives in a document beside the walls, and the template table above sits under it. All five team members edit the board at once in the final week; the strategist rewrites the insight wall four times while the art director lays out the posters.

Budget, goals, timeline and team on walls of one board: the cost and rollout beats read straight off it.

Minutes 0 to 7: the run-up and the idea

Priya opens with the job and the decision, and names the speakers. Tomas quotes the brief, names the third-full trains as the client's number, and gives the insight: the driver never gets a day out. He reads the father's quote, pauses, and hands over. Ines says the idea at minute 5:20, twice, and stops. The head of revenue writes it down. That is the moment the rule exists for: the senior person who did not write the brief has the problem, the insight and the idea inside six minutes, with nobody yet asking what it costs.

Minutes 7 to 18: the key visual and three executions

Ines shows the window-seat key visual, marked ROUGH, and reads a 90-word manifesto. Leo walks the film frame by frame from the board: the dashboard, the cut at five seconds, the father asleep, the line. Sade shows the posters on a roadside photograph at the real ratio. Leo shows First Hour inside a phone frame. The marketing director asks whether First Hour works without the film; Leo gives the line from the template ("The film is what makes it famous; the other two are what make it work") and moves on.

Minutes 18 to 27: rollout, cost and close

Tomas shows twelve weeks in three phases and the one measure. Priya shows the three tiers, recommends Core Plus, and says what Core drops. The head of revenue asks for Core with the film; Priya has the trade ready (four seeded First Hour films, not eight, starting week five). Priya closes on two decisions: the tier, and who signs the film script.

The decision record afterwards

Priya fills in the decision wall in the room and exports the board as a dated PDF that evening. The same evening, the marketing director receives the view-only link, which opens with no account, and a PDF for the leadership team.

The worked example is a script, not a result: it shows how the beats connect, not that this campaign would win.

Who Says What: Splitting the Script Across the Room

A concept presentation usually has three to five speakers, and the room judges the handovers as much as the content. Give each speaker the beats that match their authority, and write every handoff line.

Handoff lines that avoid dead air

Every handover is one sentence that names the next speaker and the next subject: "Ines has the answer to that." "Sade has the posters." "Priya has what it costs." The next speaker starts on their first line without thanking the last one. Three seconds of shuffling between speakers, five times, is fifteen seconds of the room watching you, and it reads as a team that has not rehearsed together. The IPA and ISBA guide to finding an agency is written for clients choosing a partner, and how a team works together in the room is part of what they are choosing.

Rehearse the Script Against the Clock

A script that has not been read aloud with a timer is a guess. Three runs catch most problems.

Time the words, not the slides

Count the words under each beat in the script document and divide by 130. A beat that comes out at three minutes against a two-minute budget needs cutting on paper, not rushing in the room: fast speech under nerves is the first thing a client notices. With the Storyflow plugin or connector, ChatGPT or Claude can read the talk track document, count the words under each heading and flag the beats over budget; the cutting is yours.

Cut in this order

When the script runs long, cut the appendix material first (it is already on the appendix wall), then the second evidence card in the insight beat, then the fourth execution. Never cut the cost beat or the close to save time. A presentation that runs out of time before the decision has presented and not sold.

What the Client Says Next, and What to Answer

Most concept presentations draw the same six questions. Write an answer line for each before the meeting, and know which wall answers it.

Answer in one sentence, then show the wall

Every answer is one sentence, then a wall. A two-minute answer to an objection turns into a second presentation, and the room forgets the first. In Storyflow, presentation mode stays fullscreen and steps one wall at a time, so step to the wall that answers and back rather than leaving the presentation to scroll the board in front of the client.

Park what you cannot answer, in writing

If you cannot answer, say so and write it on the decision wall: "Regional casting: Tomas to confirm by Thursday." Parked in writing is a commitment. Parked in the air is a reason to delay.

When the client rejects the idea in the room

It happens. Do not defend the work line by line; ask which part failed: the problem, the insight or the idea. If the insight failed, the work cannot be saved by changing the posters. Presenting after the client hates the first round covers the second meeting.

Presenting Over a Video Call or Sending It Ahead

The nine beats survive a video call, with three changes to the script. Shorten every beat by about a fifth, because attention on a call is thinner and nobody can read the room. Add a checkpoint question after the insight and after the executions ("Before we show you what it costs, does the idea make sense for Kestrel?"), because you cannot see nods. Name people when you ask ("Amira, does that fit the revenue plan?"), because an open question on a call gets silence.

Do not send the board before a live presentation. A client who reads the idea alone at their desk judges it without the problem and the insight, which is exactly the order the script exists to protect.

Set Up the Storyflow Board for Presentation Mode

One wall per beat, left to right

In Storyflow, presentation mode goes fullscreen and steps through the board one wall, note, image or document at a time. Lay the walls out left to right in beat order, give each a numbered heading ("05 Window seat"), and put the appendix wall last, after the decision wall, so the close is the final wall the presenter reaches in the planned run.

The script lives beside the walls, not on screen

Storyflow has no presenter view and no speaker notes. Keep the talk track in a Storyflow document beside the walls, where the team edits it, then print it or read it from a second device during the meeting. Do not put the script on the walls: a client reads faster than you speak, and a wall with your lines on it means they finish your sentence before you do.

The decision wall is filled in live

The last wall starts with the two or three decisions as headings and empty notes under each. Fill them in as the client decides, in front of them. Any to-do on the board takes an assignee and a due date, so each decision becomes a task with an owner before the meeting ends.

After the room: the link and a dated PDF

Send the view-only link the same day; it opens with no account, and anyone who wants to comment signs in. Export the whole board as a PDF with the date in the file name, because a live board can still change and the PDF is the record of what was presented. A client presentation built this way is also the start of the production plan, on the same board.

Walls in one row from left to right, with Present in the top bar: lay the beats out in this order and presentation mode steps through them one wall at a time. The brand is fictional.

Do This in ChatGPT or Claude

You can draft and time most of the talk track from a chat. ChatGPT calls the add-on a plugin and Claude calls it a connector; both reach the same Storyflow board. This route runs on your assistant's own model and plan and uses no Storyflow AI credits. It is separate from the in-app Storyflow AI, which runs inside Storyflow on Storyflow AI credits and offers menu workflows such as "Brief my campaign" and "Review what's on this board".

Install in ChatGPT

Open the Storyflow listing and select Install plugin. Sign in to Storyflow, choose which projects ChatGPT may use (all, or the ones you pick), and decide whether it may also make changes; read access is always on. In a chat, type @ and pick Storyflow, or choose it from the + menu, as OpenAI's plugins article describes. Availability depends on your ChatGPT plan, workspace and region, and in a Business or Enterprise workspace an admin manages plugins. The connection ends after 30 days and ChatGPT asks you to sign in again. The ChatGPT client presentation and ChatGPT pitch deck pages show this job from the ChatGPT side.

Connect in Claude

In Claude, go to Customize, then Connectors, select Add and then Add custom connector, as Anthropic's custom connector article describes. Name it Storyflow, enter https://mcp.storyflow.so/mcp and sign in. On Team and Enterprise plans an owner adds it under Organization settings first, and each member then connects. Gemini and Grok connect through the same address; every assistant's setup is on the Storyflow MCP page, and the Claude client presentation page covers this job in Claude.

Prompts for the talk track

Pick Storyflow first, then paste. Replace Kestrel Rail with your project.

1. "Read my Kestrel Rail board. In a new document called Talk Track, add one heading per wall in the order the walls sit, left to right, with the speaker and a minute budget for a 30-minute slot."
2. "Under the Problem heading in Talk Track, draft three sample opening lines that quote the objective from the brief document word for word."
3. "Add a note to each of the eleven walls with its minute mark, for example '04 BIG IDEA, by 0:07'."
4. "Count the words under each heading in Talk Track and add a table to the board: beat, words, minutes at 130 words a minute, budget, over or under."
5. "List the six questions the client is most likely to ask after the cost wall, with a one-sentence answer and the wall that answers each, as a table on the appendix wall."
6. "Build a slide deck from walls 1 to 11, one slide per beat, for people who miss the meeting."
7. "Add a ticket on the decision wall: Send the board PDF and view link to the marketing director, due this Friday."
8. "What changed on my Kestrel Rail board since Monday, and who changed it?"

What lands on the board, and what does not

Headings, notes, documents and their text, tables, to-dos, tickets with the due date you give, walls and slide decks land on the board, where you can edit or delete any of them. The assistant cannot assign a to-do or ticket to a person; do that on the board. A photo you attach in a ChatGPT chat does not reach Storyflow; ask for the upload link and add the key visual there. AI image generation is not available through the plugin, and it cannot read board comments, so paste client feedback into a note if you want the assistant to use it. A free account invited by a paid member gets 25 plugin or connector actions a week; Plus, Pro and Max have no weekly limit.

What to check by hand

Write the insight sentence and the idea line yourself; an assistant drafts competent versions of both, and competent is the wrong standard for the two sentences the room will remember. Check every quoted client sentence against the brief. Read the whole talk track aloud with a timer, because a word count does not hear the pauses. Check the cost tiers against the producer's numbers, not the assistant's.

The same board, reached from ChatGPT through the plugin or from Claude through a custom connector.

Where to Build It: Storyflow vs a Slide Deck, a Shared Doc and a Whiteboard App

Storyflow comes first in this comparison because it is our product and because the talk track, the concept walls, the cost table and the decision record sit on one board that presents fullscreen and opens by link with no account. The rest are ordered by how often teams use them for this job. The guide compares kinds of tool rather than brands on purpose.

A Storyflow board

A Storyflow board is best when the presentation is one step in a project that continues: the brief document is already on the board, the walls become the production plan, and the decisions become to-dos with owners. Its real limit for this job is the show itself: no presenter view, no speaker notes and no PPTX export, so a presenter who depends on notes under each slide prints the talk track. Choose a different kind of tool when the client's procurement process requires a deck file in a specific format.

A slide deck

A slide deck, the familiar route for a fixed show, wins on presenter notes, rehearsed transitions and a file that procurement can archive. Its limit is that it is a copy: the deck drifts from the working files the moment the client asks for a change, and the decisions end up in someone's email. Choose a slide deck when the client asks for a deck file, or when the presentation is a one-off with nothing to plan after it; build it from the Storyflow walls once the talk track is final.

A shared doc

A shared doc is the best place to write and edit the script itself, with tracked suggestions from the whole team. It is the wrong place to present from: work in a document reads as a report, not a campaign. Choose a shared doc for the talk track when your team already reviews copy there, and keep the work on the board.

A whiteboard app

A whiteboard app suits a live workshop where the client moves notes with you, such as a tissue session before the concept presentation. For a scripted concept presentation, its limit is sprawl: without walls and a running order, the presenter pans around a canvas and the client watches the navigation. Choose a whiteboard app for the co-creation session, then present the concept from a board built to be stepped through.

A design file

A design file holds the executions at their real sizes, built with the brand's own styles, which matters when the client's design team reviews the work. Its limit for presenting is that the brief, the insight and the cost are not in it, so the story lives elsewhere. Choose a design file for the executions themselves and place exported roughs on the presentation board.

A screen-recording tool

A screen-recording tool is the cheapest way to keep your argument alive for people who missed the meeting: five minutes of your voice over the board. It is not a presentation; nobody decides anything from a recording alone. Choose one for the forward package after a live presentation, recorded over the Storyflow board, and send it with the link.

Mistakes and Fixes

Mistake 1: Opening with credentials

Two minutes of agency history spend the attention the idea needs. The fix: one sentence of thanks, the job, the decision. Credentials go in the appendix for a new-business pitch and nowhere for an existing client.

Mistake 2: The idea arrives at minute 15

The strategist had a lot of good research. The fix: cap the run-up. In a 30-minute slot, the run-up gets five minutes, and anything that does not fit goes to the appendix wall.

Mistake 3: Explaining the idea after saying it

Three sentences about what the line means tell the room it does not work. The fix: say it twice, stop, and let the executions prove it.

Mistake 4: Talking over the film

Narrating while a film plays splits attention between your voice and the picture. The fix: set up the film in one sentence, play it in silence, then say one sentence after.

Mistake 5: Five executions at equal length

The client cannot tell which one matters. The fix: the most important first and longest, then two supporting executions, each shorter, and anything else in the appendix.

Mistake 6: Leaving the cost for an email

The client cannot decide without it, so they decide later, without you. The fix: three tiers said out loud, what each buys and drops, and your recommendation.

Mistake 7: Closing with "any thoughts?"

An open question gets opinions, not decisions. The fix: name the two or three decisions, ask for them, and write each answer on the decision wall with a name and a date.

Mistake 8: No handoff lines

Speakers thanking each other and shuffling make the team look unrehearsed. The fix: one written handoff line per speaker, and the next speaker starts on their first line.

Mistake 9: The script in agency language

"Brand salience", "cultural currency" and "always-on ecosystem" make the client translate. The fix: write the problem and the close in the client's own words from the brief, and read them back to someone outside the team.

Voice sliders on the board keep the script in the client's register, not the agency's.

What Storyflow Does Not Do for a Concept Presentation

Storyflow is built for the board the presentation comes from and the plan that follows it. For the presentation itself, these limits are real:

• No presenter view and no speaker notes. Print the talk track or read it from a second device, and keep a watch where the presenter can see it.
• Decks present fullscreen and export as PDF, with no PPTX export. If the client requires a deck file in another format, build it in a presentation app from the walls.
• No native desktop or mobile app. Present from a laptop in a browser, with an internet connection; export the board PDF before the meeting as a backup for a dead network.
• No approval status, version compare or proofing mark-up on the executions. Record decisions in notes on the decision wall and keep the dated PDF as the record.
• No calendar view or Gantt chart for the rollout: dates live in table date cells, with rows kept in date order.
• No proposals, contracts or e-signature for the scope the client chose. The signed scope lives in your contract tool; the board links to it.
• Storyflow is paid-only during early access. Plus is $7.99 a month billed annually ($9.99 monthly) and includes the in-app AI; anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free, without the in-app AI. Prices are on the pricing page.