Whether it’s flavours of ice cream, smartphone features or business practices, the things that get it right are what stick around and inform the next wave. There is a reason pear and blue cheese ice cream hasn’t left Portland (which isn’t to say we’re not a little intrigued). Product videos are no different, and while the pear and blue cheese video equivalents are stuck in their own corners of the internet, the explainer videos that get it right reach far and wide - sharing their messages with vast audiences.
These videos have a lot to teach us as we approach our product or service animated videos. We’ve identified nine videos that do certain parts of the explainer video and visual storytelling process well. Each one has a lesson that we can take forward into our own product animation videos.
Lesson 1: Making abstract products or services entertaining and fun
Spotify’s launch video
Abstract doesn’t just mean 5-year plans and dense data sets. It can also be difficult to make subjects apps and software engaging or accessible. If your product or service isn’t physical or highly focused with clear outcomes, the way you present it on screen can make all the difference. This is something often faced by software providers and services that deal heavily in numbers or data.
A great way to overcome these challenges is to to make your video entertaining and memorable, using rich and engaging illustrations. Spotify did just this in their US launch video. The product video takes their distinctly non-physical service that does little with visuals and makes it into a spectacle that holds attention as it introduces Spotify and the world of music it makes available, wrapping it all up with a clear call to action. Even if fun is the wrong feel for your video, using rich illustrations to bridge the gap between the abstract and the physical is a must if you want your product animation video to hold attention.
The illustrations and animation in Spotify’s product video have a sense of fun and energy to them, using a bold on brand colour scheme to make the equally bold drummer and drum kit stand out. They even get their logo onto the kit and into the visual narrative! This is one of our secrets to successful brand videos. The sense of fun and energy in this visual style is also captured in the onscreen text, making their message clear, memorable and strongly linked to their brand. The music in the final piece of the spectacle, leaving viewers in no doubt that something new has come to town.
Lesson 2: Resonating with and solving business or customer pain points
BlueVolt’s elevator pitch
You designed your product or your service for a reason, to solve a problem or make life easier. Showing your target audience you understand their pain by resonating with their experience and showing that you not only understand this, but have a solution as well, is a powerful way to connect with viewers and give your message more impact. We’ve written more about building connection and empathy in video here.
This is what BlueVolt did in this animated explainer video. From the very start of the video they reference the concerns and the strategies used by businesses as they try to give staff the product knowledge they need to provide a great experience and to sell. They then introduce their services and the ways these answer all of their audience’s concerns in a trackable way. This allows them to frame themselves as a company that gets the struggle and knows how to help
The whiteboard animation approach allowed their message to be brought to life with custom illustrations that delivered their message in the ideal way, designed to be relatable to their audience. By using illustration and animation in this way, BlueVolt are able to guide their audience through the problem, explaining how their solution worked and showing the benefits they can bring.
Lesson 3: Using the power of purpose
Adidas X Parley Pureboost shoes
Purpose in business is far from a passing trend. Deloitte have gone as far as to say ‘a clear purpose is everything to an organization'. Including this clear purpose in your comms and marketing is a must; it shows your audience your vision and the way the everyday activities within your business build towards that vision. Talking about your purpose also allows you to stand out from competitors, giving viewers another way to connect and resonate with you. We talk more about how to express your business purpose in whiteboard animation here.
All of these factors mean purpose can play a very important role in your product videos, making them powerful, motivational and memorable. A perfect example of this is this advert by Adidas and Parley for their Pureboost range. The animation portion of this explainer video is textured to look like thread and fabric, and they seamlessly combine the product range and joy of running with the environmental role of the shoes in recycling plastic and saving our oceans.
Not just this, they make it feel unforced and highly engaging as they mix clips of the shoes and passionate runners with animated clips of whales, waves and bottles washing up on beaches. The video is bold, memorable and moving, and shows the clear connection between buying a pair of the trainers and how this will reduce plastic waste in the ocean. This is a brilliant example of how to showcase your product or service, your purpose and how one leads into the other.
Lesson 4: Embracing humour and storytelling
Red Bull’s animated advertising campaign
Killer visuals aren’t enough, if your product animation video is going to celebrate and share what you do then you need to think about storytelling. Humour (depending on your subject), creating emotion and references play a big role in this storytelling and together, they make messages that engage and entertain. This is an important lesson for anyone planning a product video, or explainer videos of any kind. We go into more details about using storytelling in animated videos for business here.
A brilliant example of storytelling and humour in marketing videos comes from the long-running advertising campaign for Red Bull. Red Bull have been creating humorous animated adverts like the one above for over a decade, and each one shows the message-supercharging power of storytelling. Their short videos often use a relatable narrative which ends in a way that makes us laugh. The adverts provide a great lesson in the use of storytelling and humour because not only do they communicate the way their energy drink makes people feel, by using humour they make their adverts and message even more memorable, giving viewers more to connect with.
Even if humour isn’t the right emotion for your video, the adverts provide a good example of how to weave emotion and feeling into a campaign. The adverts are also a great example of making the most of the creative freedoms offered by product animation videos, combining the everyday with the ridiculous for added humour and impact. This is one way to use the creative freedom offered by animation, others include tailoring your video to the interests of your audience or creating the perfect illustrations and visuals to give your message the treatment it needs.
Lesson 5: Making big ideas work for big audiences
The RSA Animates
It’s not always a product or a service that we’re trying to sell, sometimes the thing we’re sharing is an idea - and these can be some of the hardest things get out there to a big audience. If ideas or research are at the heart of your organisation however, getting the information out there in an engaging, explanatory and meaningful way is a must.
The RSA Animates series was one of our earliest projects as a whiteboard animation studio, and it transformed ‘talking head’ lectures into whiteboard animations, to get the ideas out to a wider audience. Today the RSA Animates series has had over 100,000,000 views. The most viewed Animate has had over 18,367,800 views, while its ‘talking head’ equivalent has had just 250,108. The success of the RSA Animates shows the power of animated explainer videos and provides lots of lessons when it comes to using visual thinking to share ideas.
The series draws on the creative freedom of animation and illustration again, and shows how to use visual storytelling techniques to explain and engage people in ideas. These include:
Using visual metaphors to make complex ideas more understandable
Cultural references to make new ideas feel more familiar and engaging
Adding charm and emotion to illustrations
Presenting graphs and data in creative and visual ways
The techniques used in the creation of the RSA Animates can be applied to many uses of animated explainer video and product videos, supercharging marketing messages and calls to action as much as they do ideas.
Lesson 6: Explaining powerfully, with or without sound
Google’s Pixel 4
Videos are a powerful force on the internet today and once you’ve made and released your video, you can’t be sure where it will be viewed. It might be viewed on a webpage or on YouTube, or on a social media network. Importantly, it might be viewed with or without sound, and this is a valuable lesson we can take from product videos that have gone out there and got it right.
Google’s product video for the Pixel 4 is one video that we can learn a lot from. A motion graphic, it is dynamic and punchy and delivers all its information through onscreen text. This means that it works perfectly whether viewed silently on a social media newsfeed or in its full glory on YouTube. The combination of a quick pace, footage of the Pixel 4 in action and the onscreen text makes it engaging and informative no matter how it’s viewed.
For physical products in particular, this video and style offer plenty of lessons and tips when creating your own product videos. We also give Google bonus points for playing strongly to their brand colours and fonts. However you view this video, there is no loss of identity, impact or information.
Lesson 7: Giving people a taster that leaves them wanting more
Canongate Books/Dan Pink’s book ‘When’
Some product animation videos don’t need to explain every detail or feature, sometimes it’s more important to create a trailer that inspires viewers to want to find out more and to access or buy what you are promoting. These videos can make all the difference to someone weighing up different options and can create anticipation in your target audience.
This is something publisher Canongate Books did for the launch of Dan Pink’s book, ‘When’. By presenting several ideas from the book in a series of animated explainer videos, they were able to give viewers a feel for the book and what it offered - raising awareness and convincing people to buy without giving away every detail and point.
Engaging and rich illustrations were joined by a voiceover from the author himself, bringing a key point to life before delivering the all-important call to action. The lessons in this product video and approach could come in very handy for products or services that simply have too many features to get across in a product video, or that need to pique an audience’s interest rather than put all the cards on the table.
Lesson 8: Setting the perfect tone of voice
Headspace
It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it. Getting the tone of voice right plays an important role in making sure audiences connect to a product video in the right way. It has a big role in the way you communicate your personality and essence. This is particularly important if your product or service is linked strongly to a specific tone or style.
This product video from Headspace is a masterclass in getting the tone of voice just right, and it goes further than just the voiceover. The voiceover is an important part, however, and creates a relaxing and soothing feel to the video. They take it to the next level with their charm-infused and gentle visual style. Added to by the pastel colour palette, the tone of voice created by the visual style and the voiceover is the perfect pairing for the subject matter and embodies the nature of their meditation app perfectly.
As Headspace show, you can communicate tone of voice through every element of your video, and by matching it perfectly to your subject matter or audience, you can take your storytelling, communication and connection to the next level. It’s a great video and a lesson in getting tone of voice right.
Lesson 9: Making a call to action stick
The Think! road safety campaign
As this video shows, explainer videos are far from a new thing. Product and service animation videos have been sharing messages for decades. The best animated explainer videos end with powerful calls to action that stay with viewers for a long time (in the case of this video, over two decades!).
This UK road safety video from 1998 is a prime example of a call to action done well. Aimed at children, it delivered its central message throughout and ended on a strong and highly memorable call to action. It did this in the visual narrative and in the voiceover, which took the form of a song, tying it all together with the slogan ‘king of the road’. This video is a lesson in making a message simple and very memorable.
Keeping the call to action simple and clear, supported with engaging and tailored visuals, allows you to make your call to action strong, direct and very memorable. This approach will work well if you are directing viewers on to further resources or to take up specific advice.
The internet is bursting with great examples of product videos and explainers that have got it spot on! We have picked nine, but there are many more. While videos have been helping and informing us for a long time, they have a big and bright future. Research by Google and Ipsos has found that more than 50% of people said that video had helped them decide which brand or product to buy, showing the benefits well-made product videos can bring.
The nine lessons we can take from the videos in this post highlight the many ways there are to tailor your product animation video to the message and product, brand or service you are sharing. Our specialism is whiteboard animation and we use it to create product animation videos that are tailored exactly to the needs of a message and its audience from the earliest script all the way to the final sign off.
Whiteboard videos and visual storytelling are our passions. We’d love to talk to you about how we could share your story with whiteboard animation and answer any questions you may have. Book a discovery call today!
When done well, the ingredients in an explainer video combine to create powerful animations that inform, entertain, inspire and stay with viewers. In this post, we look at how they are made.