Animation is a form of creative technology that is increasingly being used by businesses to increase their brand awareness and boost audience engagement levels.
There are various styles of animation, e.g. explainer, whiteboard, 2D, 3D, stop motion, motion graphics and so forth, which can be used to:
- Promote products and services
- Boost internal communications
- Strengthen brand ethos
Animation and Branding
Seth Godin defines branding itself as “the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.”
If branding is all about making the consumer talk about your business, or a particular product/service belonging to your business, then your mission here is quite clear:-
You have to make your consumers talk about your business!
Branding is about spreading the word about your business as far and as wide as possible. This could be through any of the following:-
Customer reviews on e-commerce websites,
Discussions on social media platforms,
Video testimonials on youtube, or
Video conferences (e.g. google’s recent launch of hangouts on air for businesses)
So, how could animation help strengthen your branding in ways besides the more conventional the more commonly utilization of explainer videos?
Well, there are several possibilities:-
Animated Infographics: When movement is added to static data, facts and figures, these are referred to as animated infographics.
Businesses are using animated infographics in increasing frequency, especially for sales presentations and highlighting the findings of research and development work.
The use of animated infographics is catching on because they can make it considerably easier for the audience to understand and remember the information that is being presented.
Animated Logos: When a logo is made to appear as if it was in motion, it becomes animated logo.
Including an animated logo could make a world of difference to your digital marketing collateral, such as websites, e-libraries online brochures, etc.
Animated logos are also great for impressing viewers in the intros of videos used for marketing and educational purposes and livening web pages and business presentations.
Animated Banner Advertisements: If you would like to improve the effectiveness of your online adverts, then you could consider making your banner advertisements animated.
The beauty of animated banner adverts is that they can convey more than one message at a time; similar to the way animated greeting cards work.
Animated YouTube Advertisements: If you are a YouTube user, you will be aware of the adverts that appear before a video starts to play.
Animation is being used in many of these adverts as it is great tool for producing videos that need to generate a high impact in a short space of time.
This is especially true for products that would be difficult to explain using more traditional live filming such as apps and software platforms.
Animation is a form of creative technology which can be used in a variety of different ways improve brand recognition and engagement levels, besides the more conventional videos.
According to the Spiel Creative Studio, the importance of both video and content marketing is growing, it may now be time for you to consider how you could start incorporating animation into your marketing strategy.