Purpose is one of the big questions, it bothers philosophers and can drive us every now and again into an existential maze. One place where it is easier to understand and develop purpose is in business and brand identity. Whether it’s in the method or the outcome, brand purpose underpins businesses, and helps us as customers to get on board with them and choose one business over another!

This is why sharing that brand purpose is an important part of any brand strategy - it lets people understand who you are, what values you stand for and why you are here. Even without the existential maze, these are still big topics to share with your audience and you need a format that will do you and your message justice.

This is where whiteboard animation comes in. Each is custom made to share your message in the perfect, bespoke way, and provides many ways to communicate your brand and message!

Why is brand purpose important?

First things first, let’s focus on brand purpose. We’ve already mentioned some of the benefits of brand purpose and communicating it to audiences, both internal and external. Your purpose makes you relatable, unique and gives your audience something to connect with. Not only does this make your brand more memorable, it humanises you and adds depth to your offering.

Purpose-based benefits go further, adding up into big gains for a company. Writing for Forbes, Tracey Bower showed purpose driven companies had better growth (52%-42%), expansion rates (66%-48%) and more product launches (56%-33%) than those not strongly based in a purpose.

Bower also found that purpose isn’t just good for your bottom line and company growth, it can improve the experience of your team. Northwestern University showed in one study that a strong sense of purpose led employees to find their work more meaningful.

These show how great your purpose can be for your team, your progress and maybe even the world. When it comes to your purpose itself, it should be inspiring, practical and most importantly, authentic. We love collaborating with clients that have a strong brand identity and purpose because it gives us so much room for creativity and connecting emotionally. If you are thinking about your purpose and how to keep it at the heart of what you do, here is some great advice from EY.com:

First, clarify purpose. As an individual or as a company, define your purpose with as much detail and clarity as possible, identifying what differentiates your purpose and what makes your contribution to it unique.

Next, articulate purpose. Whether you’re an individual or a company, write down your purpose and revisit it regularly to keep it fresh.

Then, choose well. Actively use purpose for choice-making. No choice is ideal, but as individuals, we can choose a job or a volunteer effort or a task which is as close as possible to what matters most to us.

Finally, stay nimble. Monitor, measure, reevaluate and reassess regularly. Circumstances and context will change, and both individuals and organizations will need to shift and adapt.

How can animation help you share your brand purpose?

So, why use animation to explain your brand purpose and share it with your teams and customers? Animation, particularly whiteboard animation, can work independently or complement other comms in your marketing strategy, such as blog posts.

Animations allow you to make the most of the surge in the popularity of video. When it comes to social media, over half the people polled by SproutSocial said they valued video content over other types. This popularity is supported by findings from Wystia. Wystia found that social media users are twice as likely to share video content and 94% of marketers said video has helped them increase understanding about a product or service.

But the biggest reason animation can help you share your brand purpose is because it allows you to use the power of storytelling and visual thinking. These can make any message, no matter how abstract or complex, feel engaging and entertaining. By combining illustration, onscreen text, animation and a voiceover, animations are able to explain a lot of information in a way which can capture nuance and fine details and deliver your message well in a short amount of time.

With all this in mind, here are our five favourite reasons to use animation to share your brand purpose.

1 - Animation connects the small details with the big picture

Brand purpose provides the direction and the goal, but the big picture is made up of many details and parts. By using visual storytelling and carefully considered layouts, animation allows you to map ideas - layering information and expanding on points while also connecting them to the bigger picture.

Animation is able to do this because it can make illustrations and ideas dynamic, while also guiding and framing the viewer’s attention. This sort of idea linking is great when you want to show how one everyday action or part of your business ultimately leads to big changes and the achievement of your vision.

When it comes to whiteboard animation, this mapping goes to the next level. The camera pulls back to reveal every illustration and connection, showing again how each point, no matter how small, relates to the grand plan.

2 - Personality and branding

Your purpose is personal to you as an organisation, reflecting your values, ethos and goals. Because of this, it’s vital that when you share your purpose, you also share your personality and brand identity. At every level, animation is full of opportunities to do this. From the early scripting stages where you choose the tone and language through to the illustration style and delivery of your voiceover - you can make your video feel like you.

By using brand colours, making logos part of the visuals and including locations or characters strongly linked with your brand, you can root your video firmly in your brand and portfolio of other brand storytelling content. All of this is due to the creative potential that comes with illustration and animation. If you can imagine it, it can happen. This can benefit every brand, but it’s especially useful when tackling software, services or other complex and abstract products or ideas.

3 - Tell your brand story the way it needs to be told

For us, there is nothing worse than limits to creativity. It might be a template or pre-made set of illustrations, or the constraints of shot footage and the locations or actors you can and can’t access - either way it holds back brand storytelling and the vision that could be achieved. Animation overcomes these restrictions by offering a blank canvas, ready to be filled with illustrations that capture exactly what is needed.

We love this about animation, because it means every whiteboard video we make is tailored exactly to the needs of a client and their brand storytelling. This is important every story is unique, and when it comes to sharing it - pre-made assets just don’t have the same effect as hand-drawn illustrations designed just for you.

It has an added bonus too; you can tailor your animation to your audience as much as your story. This is a game changer when it comes to relatability, engagement and video impact. By including characters, scenes or visual references you know your audience will enjoy, you can design an animation that lands in the very best way - telling your story in a way that does it justice and makes sense to the people you are trying to reach.

4 - It doesn’t have stop with the animation

One of the best things about working with illustrations and animations is that they are versatile. This allows your brand storytelling to reach even further, in the form of social media and marketing assets based on the animation. Illustrations or short clips taken from an animation can be repurposed, extending the value you get and the size of the campaign you can run.

Whether it’s a character, scene or that visual metaphor that frames your brand essence perfectly - it can work even harder to spread the word and engage your audience.

5 - Research shows that animation is effective and shot footage

We specialise in whiteboard animation, and saw a very strong response to it from audiences when the RSA Animates launched. We wanted to understand what was happening and enlisted the help of Professor Richard Wiseman, Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, to help us investigate.

We compared the response to a ‘talking head’ video and a whiteboard animation that used the same voiceover. Our findings were clear; the whiteboard animation was more effective than the ‘talking head’ video. Viewers were 66% more likely to share the whiteboard animation, it resulted in a 15% increase in information retention and was rated 33% more entertaining. Click here to watch an animation explaining our research and to download our research paper with Professor Wiseman.

These qualities are all essential when creating meaningful brand storytelling that will stay with viewers as they weigh up choices and decisions in their daily lives. The findings also confirmed what we were seeing and helped explain the high number of viewers, likes and comments.

Brand purpose animation examples

You can probably tell that we’re big fans of animation and are very passionate believers in its ability to help you tell the world about your story and your brand purpose! Here are some example animations we’ve made for clients doing exactly this.

WeTransfer - Beautifully Obvious

Underpinning all of WeTransfer’s work and branding is an ethos of sustainability, creativity and the unrestricted flow of ideas that puts people at its heart. It was an honour to help them explain this ethos and how it has fitted into their story.

eBay - The Circular Economy

Our animation for eBay is a great example of how you can link small actions to the big picture. We explained the importance of the circular economy to eBay’s brand and their purpose, breaking the ‘make - use - throw away’ model. We showed how just selling your phone on eBay can help create change a world away, and how eBay is ready to be an engine of a more sustainable future.

Big Yellow Storage - Storage Nightmares

We love this animation for Big Yellow Storage. Part of a series of three, this campaign increased brand awareness and communicated brand purpose in a playful and creative way. We had great fun turning household objects into nightmarish characters.

Brand storytelling tips for your next whiteboard animation

Whiteboard animation is the perfect way to tell people about your brand purpose; it offers so much potential and creative freedom. Making the most of this is a must and we’ve put this list of tips together to help you create an animated explainer that reflects you, your brand identity and acts as a major asset in your marketing strategy.

• Preparation is key - some of the hardest work happens before any illustrating or animation has started. Being clear about the message you want to share and the settings your animation will be used in are essential to making your animated explainer as impactful as possible.

• Know your audience - technically this is still part of the preparation, but it’s a biggie! By understanding your audience, you may get insights into where your animation needs to be used. More importantly, by knowing your audience you can tailor the video to them, their needs and the things they will relate to and connect with. This can be a game changer when it comes to how your animation will be received.

• The script is the foundation of everything - your script will be what is read by your voiceover artist, it informs any onscreen text and gives the illustrators and animators what they need to start thinking visually. So, it needs to be good - capturing your style, personality, tone and approach to the animation.

• How will your branding feature? - thanks to the freedom that comes with animation, this is a question that opens up a lot of possibilities. You can include brand colours, fonts, locations, well-known faces and mascots. Branding and logos can become part of the visual storytelling or overall layout of the animation.

• Create an emotional connection - to leave a lasting impact on your viewers, an emotional connection is important. You can create this in the script, illustrations and the animation of scenes or characters - adding extra depth to the brand storytelling and connecting with viewers at a direct human level.

• Make it unique - you and your brand are unique, so your video should be too. We’re not saying you need to reinvent animation, but, using the tips we’ve mentioned above, you can really make it your own. This lets your audience know it’s by you, even if they saw it in an unexpected context, and helps you to stand out from the crowd. The time and obvious effort you put into your animation also says a lot about your brand values and commitment.

• Think about your call to action or final message - after all the work that has gone into your animated explainer, it’s essential that you leave viewers with the next steps (calls to action) to engage with you even more. It might be visiting your website for information, reaching out on social media or attending an event. If your message doesn’t have a call to action, then the final points of your animation should be carefully considered to make sure viewers finish it with the right takeaway message.

Brands take a long time to build, so they deserve to be celebrated and shared. Animation, and whiteboard animation in particular, are great ways to share your brand storytelling. They connect brand purpose with the actions, big and small, that make it possible. We’d love to talk with you about how a whiteboard animation could help you share your brand and answer any questions, book a free creative consultation with us today!