Animate Your Marketing! – A Guide To Using Animation In Marketing
76% of marketers say that animated marketing videos increase profitability. When used appropriately, animation can be one of the most effective forms of marketing communication. Animated videos are able to convey complex messages in a simple and cost-effective way, express more abstract ideas, be styled fully in line with your brand assets, be altered at any time during the production process and make the ‘impossible’ possible. This guide to using animation in marketing will show how animation can lift up your marketing communication and convince you on why your next video should be animated.
The Key Elements Of Effective Animation Marketing
(1) Choosing The Right Style
Animation is very versatile and entails many different styles. The style most commonly used in marketing videos are 3D animation, 2D animation drawn and vector-based, stop motion animation, and motion graphics.
3D Animation
3D animation gives your marketing video a more realistic touch. It is used most often by businesses in industries such as medicine, real estate and construction to create a more comprehensive view and elevate specific objects.
2D Animation
Hand-drawn or vector-based 2D animation is less dynamic and simpler but radiates authenticity and allows for the creation of images and worlds that are very hard or impossible to create using 3D animation.
Stop Motion
Stop motion is probably the most versatile animation style as it can be altered during the production process at any time. The most popular type of stop motion animations in marketing is the animated explainer video. The latter conveys the value of products and services through simple yet comprehensive visuals.
Motion Graphics
Motion graphics allow your marketing video to elevate an emotional connection with the viewer in a concise though imaginative way. It allows for a brand to express their uniqueness and makes your brand videos more engaging. Therefore, motion graphics significantly contribute to raising your brand recognition.
All styles are different, and the benefits of one do not explicitly rule out the other. However, in order to ensure that your animation is reinforcing rather than damaging your brand, it is important to consider which style is most appropriate for the subject and in line with your brand assets. For example, if you have a 300-year-old business telling it’s company history, then you may want to use a traditional, hand-drawn style of animation. This can give the animation a lyrical, poetic style which helps convey the branding that the company wishes to express. Conversely, if you have a young, start-up, then you may want to use a CGI animated style. This could include large block colour and a more corporate, tech feeling to the video.
(2) Selecting The Right Pacing
Pacing for the video will depend upon its purpose and the buyer persona. You want the animation to maintain a pace which retains the interest of the audience. Too fast might confuse the viewer whereas too slow may bore them. Explainer videos, in particular, need to keep impetus so that the viewer is delivered the key benefits and features of that product or service in a direct way that doesn’t waste their time. In other words, the pacing is a critical aspect of your animated video, as keeping your audience engaged until the end stands or falls with the timing of the action and the story.
(3) Making The Most Of Music
Music is a very important element of the story, especially in animation. It stimulates a different part of the brain which, combined with animation, stimulates multiple senses to help the viewer process and understand information more effectively. Thus, music and animation go hand in hand. Music elevates the emotional response that animation evokes. Other than setting a mood, music reinforces the message of your animated video. An informative marketing video such as a training or explainer video, for instance, is more likely to reach its full potential when you add a score that carries the emotion but does not distract the viewer from the content. On the other hand, a slick, fast-paced advertisement is more likely to reach its full potential when you add a more up-tempo and uplifting tune. Alternatively, you could start your video with lower and deeper tones when the problem is introduced and swiftly turn these into higher and more hopeful tones when a solution is introduced. Finally, your choice of music depends on the target group. Music helps to keep up your audience’s interest or draw attraction in the first place. In short, music reinforces the beneficial elements of an animated video and lifts your animation to the next level.
Benefits Of Animation In Video
Personalises Your Video
The versatile character of animation provides businesses with a huge canvas to express their brand on. If you’re a medical institution you can use animation to embrace a clean, professional and traditional look within your video. If you are an educational institution you can use a bright, cartoony and friendly animation style. Moreover, animated elements can personalise generic (stock) footage, aligning it with your brand image or modernise old footage, allowing it to be reused.
Captures And Holds Attention
Animation significantly improves retention of messages. The combination of eye-catching graphics and exciting movements grabs the viewer’s attention almost instantly. Approximately 65% of the population are visual learners, meaning that they understand and process information presented in a visual format better and faster. Hence, focussing your marketing video in an animated form can help you to produce a more receptive audience for the content that you want to deliver. It is not only more memorable but also stimulates deeper audience engagement. In other words, animation helps you to deliver information in the way that your audience is most likely to remember it.
Simplifies Complex Content
Animation has the ability to convey complex information in a quick and easy way by abstracting the most important points from your message and turning them into simple though understandable visuals. The latter works in particular for messages that entail training instructions or highly technical information.
Stimulates Creativity
Animation especially works when you’re subject is intangible as there are often no pre-determined visual concepts that you are bound to, in order to satisfy your viewer’s expectations. The audience is less concerned with how the product or service displayed in the video feels, tastes or looks like, allowing the animator to be more creative. Thus, animation allows for the expression of more abstract ideas and make the impossible possible through visualising ideas that cannot be visualised in a live-action production.
Reduces Costs
Animation in a marketing video is usually a very cost-effective option. It saves you time, money and effort in terms of preparing, travelling and filming on a shoot. Moreover, it makes expensive concepts, such as setting the video in exotic locations, affordable. With animation, you are only limited by your imagination! Finally, animation allows you to make changes to your video at any time in the production process whereas with live-action videos this would be practically impossible without spending a lot more time, money and effort on it. Hence, animation makes it possible to still change your video at the very end of the production or even a couple of years later when you decide to update or modernise its visuals or the content without the need for a significant increase in budget.
Wrap Up
Self-evidently, animation is not suitable for every single concept or brand. At the end of the day, your choice between animation and live-action or the style of your animation depends on your brand image, your target audience, the message that you want to convey and the purpose of your video content.
Curious whether animation suits your business or concept? We, at Bold Content, are able to give you advice as to whether animation is suitable or not. Use our contact form or call us on 0203 637 1467.