The Beat - Summer 2018

Summer 2018
INSIGHTS
NEWS
| REVIEWS | IDEAS | OPINION |
VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS »
Live Sketching: Adding Visual Vitality to
Both Internal and External Marketing Efforts
Take a look at one company’s mission to elevate ideas through impactful visual learning.
w
e’ve all been there. It’s only
the first 10 minutes of the
corporate retreat, and you’re
already feeling your eyelids droop.
What if there were a way to liven
up these presentations? To actually
engage audiences with this type of—
let’s be honest—typically dry content?
Enter the Sketch Effect. The
company is bringing a dose of
whimsy and creativity to humdrum
trade conferences, brainstorming
sessions, and business presentations
everywhere through its inventive “live
sketching” process.
“We aim to elevate ideas through
remarkable visual communication,”
explains Founder and Principal
William Warren. “We make our
clients’ ideas more understandable,
memorable, and shareable through
the power of visual learning.”
The Sketch Effect offers two core
products: Sketch Effect Live and Sketch
Effect Video. Live sketching involves
sending illustrators to an event to
create real-time, often improvised
visual aids—tools such as graphic
recordings and interactive murals—
that complement presentations,
events, or meetings. The company’s
video service consists of unique
animations for everything from inhouse,
internal communication videos
to public, promotional explainer videos.
ELEVATING IDEAS
These products are helpful aids for
more than just explaining HR benefits
in a jazzy format. Live sketching has
a number of use cases for companies
of just about any size and scope. The
Sketch Effect works with entities that
run the gamut from large corporations
such as Delta Airlines and Home Depot,
to global consulting firms such as
Accenture, to regional events such as
the EIQ email marketing conference,
to scrappy startups.
In the hypothetical instance of a
budding blockchain start-up, for instance,
live sketching might be a useful
tool for explaining a complex concept
to investors. For a public-facing event,
creating a live sketch mural keeps
people thinking about a message long
after audiences have dispersed.
“People’s eyes light up” as they watch
Sketch Effect artists bring concepts to
life via ink and paper, says Warren. “It’s
different and it’s fun; but it serves a
practical purpose, too, because it helps
people latch onto ideas.”
There are a few ways the Sketch
Effect encourages information
longevity. The company’s clients
receive the physical output created
during their live sketch sessions and
are sent polished, digital copies of
images following the event. Warren
says he’s seen clients get inventive
with this collateral, framing the images
and displaying them at company HQ
or turning the sketches into physical
books and mailing them to event
attendees after the fact.
Integrating social media crowdsourcing
or an audience Q and A into
a live sketching session is another
unique tactic to add interactivity to an
event. For example, in the midst of a
conference, a Sketch Effect artist may
peruse Twitter for the event’s hashtag
and work attendee tweets directly into
the artwork. This approach cements
the transient nature of social media
into a longer-lasting, more concrete
visual tool, creating a snapshot of the
social conversations.
“As society becomes saturated
with digital media, there’s an authentic
element about something that’s
physical and created by a human
being,” says Warren. He notes,
however, that the Sketch Effect isn’t
“locked in” to an analog approach.
One of the company’s recently
released Sketch Effect Live products,
for example, experiments with digital
live sketching—artists sketch on a
tablet and beam drawings into a room
via screencast. The process bridges
the gap between the digital and the
physical without sacrificing the ethos
of the product.
Live sketching services prove
effective as a tool for improving
audience retention, says Warren. He
cites one large retailer who has been
working with the Sketch Effect for four
years; the retailer reports that adding
live sketching to its annual conference
caused audience engagement rate
scores to soar. Sketch Effect videos, too,
typically see much higher completion
rates than standard corporate videos do.
“The experience is part of our
service—part of the value that our
clients are getting,” explains Tereza
Omabuwa, Business Development
Coordinator. “It’s more than just a
visual you can post on social media;
seeing an artist work right there in
front of you and visualizing [an idea]
without any prep adds a real wow
factor. It’s kind of magical.” n