Why Animation and Explainer Videos Are So Effective in Digital Advertising

Brands are seeking ways to tell their stories to customers and engage them within several minutes. In the modern digital world, you have even less than a minute to catch attention, stick to memory, and awake an unforgettable spectrum of emotions associated with your brand. No need to look for anything better in its shape of engagement than a video. I don’t claim it’s a holy truth, but just a very subjective opinion and personal digital marketing finding.

Video is probably the most powerful narrative form in digital advertising. The first five seconds define whether the potential customer is interested in your offering and will continue listening to your brand message. Five seconds of an engaging video can be packed with more value to a target audience than any other type of content. The brand’s main challenge is to leverage this time as effectively as possible.

There is one more hint that can help your business stand out with a recognizable style. Animation. It is hard to repeat, plagiarize, or copy. It’s a very original and unique product itself. What can be better than introducing your company to an audience by employing the shape that is literally screaming about your brand’s uniqueness and unusual approach to things? Extraordinary, memorable, entertaining, and easy-to-understand. This fun and unobtrusive cartoon can do more for your business success and popularity than any sales pitch or digital advert. There are a lot of ways marketing can benefit from the animated video.

Of course, these are just words, so, let’s take a look at data taken from real-life stories.

• Once, Crazy Egg hired Demo Duck to produce an explainer video that helped them earn $21,000 of additional revenue per month. Not bad for a single animated video that cost around $5,000-15,000.
• Work.com increased conversions by 20% thanks to an explainer video produced by Switch Video.
• Dropbox created the video that grew conversions by 10%. Viewed more than 750,000 times in a month, this video resulted in several thousand extra sign-ups for their service per day.

Here is one more excellent example of an animated commercial that really multiplies conversions.

Why Animation Is So Powerful

We love to listen to stories. And we love to watch them even more!

Do you remember yourself being a child? I bet you have liked watching cartoons, probably even more than ice-cream. They are entertaining, adventurous, and featuring exciting stories. Although we are adults, we still love to listen to engaging stories! And your customers too. Try to investigate your target audience and tell a story that would resonate with them. It would be particularly useful if you told your brand’s story in a short animated video.

Animation creates a lasting impression

It’s not easy to find anything more memorable than a fun animated character, acting in an adventurous story. The hero alone can evoke a whole range of associations and emotions, not mention an extraordinary plot and additional visual effects featured in an animated video.

Most often, we perceive information through a prism of associations and our own system of concepts. What I see is a red flower, someone else will see it as a purple rose of a rare species, while another person can see it as a simple plant and nothing more. Our views of the world are so different. But, there are things that unite all of us — basic emotions and strong associations instilled by society. An animation video is a perfect medium for encoding particular feelings and positive associations related to a brand. Visualized in the form of a cartoon, they are especially sticky and powerful.

Increase brand awareness with a branded animation

In an animated video, you can use branding colors, logos, or other elements of a brand identity to emphasize your company’s distinctive style. There are many examples in which famous companies use color palettes commonly associated with their brands in animated commercials to raise brand awareness and recognizability.

Just look at these fun pals with green hair in the video produced by Explain Ninja for Pipedrive. Green is one of Pipedrive’s primary branding colors, so the company intentionally applied it in a video to build specific color associations with a brand.

An animated video sells while being unsalesy

We are more about to make a purchase when this decision is natural and driven by our conclusions about a brand and its products (or services). People don’t like sales pitches or too obvious promotion because it automatically implies some pressure and intentional influence on their decision-making process.

On the contrary, animation allows you to introduce your product or service to the public as unobtrusively as possible. The video may include a slight hint at your product as the best solution to the customer’s problem, however, it’s not necessary. Anyway, your main goal is to entertain the customer, grab their attention, and evoke interest in a brand. All the rest will happen organically when a potential customer enters your website to learn more about a brand, staying behind the video.

Animation builds an emotional connection with the customer

Animation triggers a lot of emotions if to compare with other types of content. Entertaining the viewer, and providing visual satisfaction, it helps also set emotional bonds with a person, communicating at a more personal and intuitive level. It allows a brand to transfer information more effectively and anchor the company’s ideas in the customer’s heart and mind. A more emotional type of communication helps set long-term relationships between a company and its customers.

Conclusion

The digital space, marketing messages, and advertising are saturated with repeating messages and visuals. Stand up and stand out! The digital advertising, as well as marketing communication with your customers, is the Art. Your brand can lead in it by leveraging the power of an explainer video or animated commercial. Hopefully, my insights will be useful for your business and help you come up with fresh ideas for your marketing and advertising.