In today’s digital landscape saturated with content, brands need creative ways to stand out and grab attention. Animation is one of the most versatile, memorable, and effective mediums to increase brand awareness and relay your message.
Studies show that users pay more attention to animation than static images or text. In our experience, animated content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media.
Brands that implement animation in their marketing and advertising strategy reap enormous benefits in engagement, storytelling, simplifying complex ideas, standing out online, increased social sharing, higher conversion rates, and overall brand recall.
Here are 7 compelling data-backed reasons why you need high-quality animation if you want to boost brand awareness and drive business growth:
1. Animation Creates Emotional Connections
Animation brings brands to life through captivating storytelling that tugs at emotions and builds connections with the audience.
When people are emotionally invested in content, they are more likely to pay attention, share, and engage further with the brand.
- 70% of consumers make purchase decisions based on emotion rather than logic or features. (Source: Gallup)
- Viewers who responded emotionally to the video are 2X more likely to share it.
- 80% of respondents indicated they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalized experiences and 90% indicated that they find personalization appealing. (Source – Epsilon)
“Storytelling with animation helped us connect with customers at a deeper, more human level. Our uplifting brand story resonated emotionally and increased positive brand sentiment by 29%.” – Emma Davis, CMO at Postzen.
2. Simplify Complex Topics With Visuals
Animation uses visual metaphors, examples, and demonstrations that simplify complex ideas and make them easy to understand.
- Explainer videos with visuals can improve learning retention by over 400% compared to just reading text.
- 97% of users say videos help them understand a product or service better than text alone. (Source: Wyzowl)
Rather than overloading users with text and technical jargon, animated video lets you demonstrate how your product works and its key benefits through a memorable visual story.
3. Animation Boosts Brand Memorability
- Your brand is 6X more likely to be remembered if seen through video versus text alone.
- 59% of senior executives say they can remember a video they have watched in the past month. (Source: Forbes)
Animation delivers complex information in bite-sized visually engaging formats. The colorful graphics, characters, and metaphors make the content more memorable and your brand instantly more recognizable.
4. Drive More Engagement and Sharing
Animation grabs attention and drives sharing across social media platforms resulting in increased brand impressions and traffic.
- Posts with GIFs get 55% more engagement than posts without.
- Video attracts 1,200% more shares than text and images combined.
- 64% of users are more likely to share branded video content with friends if it’s entertaining.
Leverage the power of viral sharing with animation – turn customers into brand advocates.
5. Higher Conversions with Demo Videos
Demo videos that show how your product works rather than just telling what it does convert better. Animation allows you to simulate an engaging product experience before users sign up.
- 70% of buyers prefer to see how a product works via video before purchasing. (Source: Spiceworks)
- Explainer videos can increase conversion rates by up to 20% (Source: Wyzowl)
- Product demo videos can increase conversions by up to 144% (Source: Vidyard)
6. Animation Transcends Language Barriers
Animated footage transcends language barriers making your brand and content accessible to a global audience. The visual medium conveys the story and message with universal appeal.
- 74.1% of general internet users are native non-English speakers. (Source: Internet World Stats)
- Marketing campaigns with multilingual video assets receive over 50% more conversions. (Source: IBM)
Animation avoids subtitles allowing you to reuse visual content internationally across different campaigns and countries.
7. Build Trust and Thought Leadership
Brands that use animation are perceived as more trustworthy, progressive, and innovative. Animation positions you as a thought leader who values new technology and creativity.
- 96% of businesses say video helps users trust a brand more than other content formats. (Source: Animoto)
- Brands using video grow revenue 49% faster year-on-year compared to brands that don’t. (Source: Mediapost)
Animation establishes expertise and know-how especially when explaining complex services or products. Expert testimonials, statistics, and data presented via animated text/graphics make your brand highly credible.
In summary, animation in marketing and advertising elicits unparalleled benefits in brand building, engagement, conversions, and thought leadership. Creative animated storytelling simplifies complex messaging, drives measurable business impact and gives your brand a competitive edge.
Types of Marketing Animation & Use Cases
There are a diverse range of animation styles and formats that can be tailored to your specific brand objectives:
- 2D Motion Graphics: Ideal for explainer videos, intros, instructional content, etc. Motion graphics combine typography, illustrations, and animated elements to turn complex topics into visually simple narratives.
- Whiteboard Animation: Humanize your brand while breaking down complicated messaging into engaging, illustrated stories. The informal whiteboard doodle style connects with audiences.
- 3D Animation: From product demos to animated brand characters, 3D animation builds recognition and brings products to life through realistic visuals and motion.
- Typography Animation: Animated text elicits viewer attention and makes recall easier. Use kinetic typography videos to convey key messages and statistics.
- Interactive Animation: Create a dynamic brand experience with HTML5 interactive content, parallax scrolling, and animations that react to user behavior.
- GIFs: These compressed, short, looping animations work perfectly for social media bite-sized content. GIFs convey emotion and capture interest.
Animation Production Timeline
The production timeline for a 60-second 2D animated explainer video is typically 4-6 weeks and involves:
- Scripting (1 week): The script forms the foundation for framing storytelling and messaging.
- Storyboarding (1 week): Visual storyboard gives a blueprint for the video – illustrations per scene.
- Graphic Design (1 week): Character illustrations, background art, color palette, etc. are created.
- Animation (2 weeks): Animators bring the storyboard to life with motion graphics.
- Music and Voice-Over (1 week): Audio elements finalize the branded explainer video.
- Review and Revisions (1 week): Feedback cycles perfect the video until client signoff.
For 3D videos, allow 8-12 week production timelines owing to the higher complexity of 3D modeling and animation.
Animation Budgets
Costs vary based on the style, length, and complexity of the video.
Brands use a mix of videos and GIF content for different campaigns. Allocate at least 15% of your marketing budget to animation for an optimized strategy.
The unique storytelling power of animation, coupled with data-driven measurable impact on brand metrics make it an essential marketing channel you cannot ignore.
FAQs
What is the primary goal of using animation in marketing?
The main goals are to grab the audience’s attention, convey brand messaging and stories in a memorable way, increase engagement and social shares, educate and inform users, and ultimately drive conversions and sales.
How does animation help improve brand awareness?
Animation makes brands more recognizable, relatable, and likable. Viewers better grasp brand values through storytelling. Animated logos and mascots boost visual identity. Overall brand impressions and reach increase exponentially.
Why are animated videos more engaging than static graphics or images?
Animation adds motion, emotion, humor, storytelling, and personality missing from lifeless static content. Higher engagement stems from forging emotional connections, communicating ideas clearly, and the extra creativity and innovation animation affords.
What metrics show the impact of animation on marketing success?
Track video view rate, completion rate, social shares, inbound links, conversions from video pages, brand search volume, branded traffic from social media referrals, and sales assisted by video. Surveys can quantify brand perception and recall lift.
How can we make animation marketing videos go viral?
Focus on highly creative storytelling, relatable characters, humor, entertainment, and emotion/inspiration. Promote videos through owned channels plus seeding on social media. Run video ads to gain initial traction. Earned PR and influencer outreach expands organic reach.
What animation formats work best for specific marketing channels?
Short looping GIFs perfectly suit social media while YouTube and websites work well for 30-120 second videos. Use motion graphics for emailers and blog posts. Parallax animations engage website visitors. Interactive content and HTML5 banners enable creativity.
