Introduction

Hello and welcome to three things where I get to tell you three things that I love about something and three things that I think could be done significantly better.

In this particular case we have a Richard Yu from Huawei launching his P20 and P20 Pro this – is their flagship it’s the equivalent of an iPhone launch. This part demonstration took place only last week in Paris and I’ve found three things that could be improved upon and three things that are great about the products demonstration.

Note

Note firstly, I do not criticise or pick up on the fact that Richard’s English is not great that’s not important because his first language is not English, it is excusable. Had his first language been English and his communication not very good that would be an issue but as it is in this particular product demonstration, as we will see, the words that he says are often repeated in short form on the slides which means that if anyone cannot properly hear Richard – they can read what he is talking about.

Three Things I love

Number One

What are the three things that I love and the three things that could have been done better in this presentation?

Number one: the statement by Richard which is made ‘this is the best smartphone camera ever’ – Huawei Pro is the best smartphone camera ever -when someone says this is the best smartphone camera ever that’s aspirational and that’s something that we can talk about to other peopl: ‘Hey look at this the P20 or P20 Pro – this is the best smartphone camera ever’ – that works.

It’s unfortunate though that the particular statement comes at minute 14 – it took him 14 minutes to get to that point – I would love that statement to have been made in the first minute.

Number Two

Second thing I like about this particular product launch demonstration is that Richard takes a photograph and then he says to the audience I took this photograph last night: ‘You know I took this photo last night and I was astonished – why was I astonished? My eyes I cannot see this red flower  –  it’s purely black but I take a photo oh my god is that a flower there I, I forgot that.’ Your phone can see more than your eyes can see. That would suggest that we no longer need these night-vision goggles, all we need is the P20 or P20 Pro and we can see in the dark.

Number Three

The third thing and that I love by far the most in this particular product demonstration is the use of my favourite vegetable, carrots. I have loads of carrots every single day, up to half a kilogram but, that’s not why particularly I love the use of carrots in this video – why do I like it so much? It’s because he’s demonstrating how carrots can be seen in very low light – typically carrots are known to help us see in the dark, well now the P20 and P20 Pro can help us see carrots in the dark! He says ‘You know that’s the you know actual low light condition, even your eyes cannot see this carrot the other phone you can see that no flash we can take in the photo you can see all the details.’ This is clever, it’s a nice, novel way of presenting information. This is the high point of the product demonstration for me.

Three Improvements

The three things that Richard could have seriously done better.

Number One

Number one this one is pretty obvious, why on earth would you wear black if your background is black? All it does is it means that all we the audience really see is your skin and in this particular case if we black out the skin Richard pretty much disappears.

Wearing black on black is not a good idea. I’m pretty sure Richard knew what the backdrop would have been before he went up there to present, so whoever his stylist is should be removed – that person should get the tin tack –  get the sack – if Richard is looking for a new stylist then I can recommend Sofia Wu who happens to be a friend of mine and would certainly have not said to him to wear the same colour clothes as his backdrop.

Number Two

Number two Richard suggests that you can see me from the audience. If you take a photograph of me you can zoom in and get a better picture of me.

‘You know that the P20 and P20 Pro the more the most powerful zoom on smartphone, it can help you to zoom in all the detail. If you are using this phone you far away you can take the detail of me.’

Why on earth did he not actually do that? This is not an MVP, the company has been around for a number of years, it’s worth billions. He surely could have had someone in the audience with his phone take a photograph of him zoom in and show that live up on stage.

Number Three

Number three, the third biggest problem with this particular pitch and product demonstration and it is a big problem. It is the biggest problem by far and it is – at no point does Richard tell us why on earth he actually has built out all these super duper features.

Why is it that now the camera when it’s taking a video is more stable – who does that help? Why is it that we suddenly have photographs being taken in lower light? What is all that about? The entire product demonstration tends to be a list of features and then sometimes they show how its applied. Had Richard have said one in five photographs or videos taken are deleted because when you’re taking a video often your hands are shaking so you get a juddery photograph or video but, we’ve solved that problem with this fantastic new stabilization technique and artificial intelligence – that would have made some sense, that would have formed a problem and a solution which the audience can go away and tell others about.

Conclusion

In conclusion I would give this product demonstration something like 5 to 6 out of 10. The slides are simple and slick, it’s clean, there are no great stumbles.

As I said the communication of the particular individual in this case was not particularly great but that doesn’t matter because his first language was not English.

There were lots of areas for improvement Richard could have quite easily had a lot less slides – he has about twice as many slides as someone like Steve Jobs used and if you had less slides he could have actually engaged the audience more and spoken to them more about what he was doing and why there’s a problem and then talk about the solution.

In this particular case it really is a matter of slide, point, slide, point, slide, point, which is a bit hypnotic and can be boring. Richard, less slides more narrative.