Leading household essentials business Kimberly-Clark announced its Q2 2010 earnings on 23rd July. Using a live webcast conference call the management team outlined their results for the Quarter.

Supporting this essential piece of investor relations was a beautifully presented PowerPoint™ presentation. It was a beautifully presented package, but its beauty stopped there–at the packaging. Because the Kimberly-Clark earnings PowerPoint™ show was essentially yet another piece of corporate presentation-ware.

They used a standard corporate template, bullet lists and bullet dashes were everywhere. Yes, there were product pictures, but they never had the prominence that they deserved. Instead it was text that had the priority. Large text, small text and even smaller text. One slide–slide 23–contained some 125 words. And nothing else.

It’s indicative of a wider corporate presentation malaise. And it will take some curing.