What Makes a Good Explainer Video?

When you need an explainer video for your business, it can be tough for some to imagine… What will it look like? What do we need to say? How long is best for conversion? Will it do what I need for my brand? 

Here are some pointers that will help your explainer video to win for you.

Short Script

People generally have a short attention span for a video online, so keep the rambling down; it’s essential to consider what will the viewer see alongside the explainer that goes into more detail. It will generally always be with more context, so you can afford to leave extras out.

An explainer video is designed to be short and catchy, and you can’t do that if you go over 2 mins. Ideally, 90s to 2 mins would cover the message. You can read more about video lengths and attention span here

Well Designed Visuals

The design of a video can be very impactful one way or another. It can represent you poorly if it’s not well thought out – or it can show off your strengths. 

A motion designer with a good understanding of visual communication – and how people usually perceive form and colour, for example, can elevate your video and convey exactly what you mean quickly with simple, but powerful drawings.

Good Concept

The concept should be figured out at the start of the production. An exciting concept will make you stand out and make your explainer more memorable. Do you have an unusual idea? It might just work. Or if not, leave it to the creative team of the explainer video company you’re working with. 

Ideation is an exciting part of my job, coming up with concepts takes practice, collaboration and openness – especially at the start when everyone is just throwing ideas around. But it is worth it to find those unique solutions. 

Having a concept or device, either visually or with the script will bring your explainer video up a level.

Simple Script Language

Everyone uses a certain amount of jargon in business, but there are not many places for it in explainer videos. Spoken language is often quite different from written language.

It needs to be simple. Shorter sentences and shorter worlds make it much easier to digest quickly. This will help your audience understand, even if they’re only half-listening or watching. 

When it comes to scripting animation for your business – think concise.

Address Your Target Audience

Being able to frankly speak to your audience and address their exact pain points will be much more useful than trying to catch everyone with vague propositions – or details that aren’t relevant.

If you have a strong idea of your buyer persona it will be much more impactful to them. Again this comes in mostly at the scripting stage.

High-Quality Animation

This feels very obvious to say, but the higher the quality of the animation the more viewers can be absorbed in the story and weird bits where someone moves funny, or it’s jerky won’t catch their eye. As soon as they are distracted, they’ve lost the flow. 

The goal of animation is not to be noticed.

Try not to Be Too Serious

The world is full of quite serious corporate videos, there is still a place for them, but Explainers are generally more light-hearted, you can bring out the fun side of your brand or product. You can add some personality to the video, gaining empathy. 

Because you can show pretty much anything visually, it gives you a lot more scope to make unusual comparisons, or exaggerate a little. It’ll make you be remembered.

Benefits not Features

Going on about the features of your new software or service may be thrilling to you, but your audience needs to know precisely why it’s worth it, what does it do for them?

It’s a Them not Us approach in the script that will help.

Keep Your Team Small

The bigger your approval team is for reviewing the key stages, the more disjointed the video may end up. It’s a classic case of too many cooks – you will get a lot of personal opinions. 

And you need to define, is their feedback valid – will they make the video better? or are they adding more complication?

Music and Sound Effects

High-quality music can set the tone – I’d always recommend using a royalty-free track, not just a free music track (as they’ll be blander / or massively overused. It’s also good to keep your personal music taste out of it and trust the production company. 

And if your video is set in natural surroundings – for a more filmic option, adding SFX of recognisable sounds can really immerse the audience and set the scene fully – you’d expect it on a filmed video. 

Or if the animation and design are more conceptual based, adding sounds effects of beeps and boops and subtle whooshing, etc help to reinforce movement and flow.

Explainer video from Giant Ant, with a powerful soundtrack – invoking empathy in the audience

A Good Video Production Process

This is the only part where we are serious! Having a precise method in place for the video will make sure that you can review it at each stage, and approve the script, treatment, style frames, design and animation. 

This methodology leaves little room for error and means that you should be pretty happy when you see the final product!

Summary

You can see a lot of what makes a great explainer video is in the concept, and script stage.  The story you tell and how you tell it is the basis for the whole video and isn’t to be overlooked, or rushed. 

Everyone is often excited to get the visual stages, but the planning makes it. 

To see some video examples, head to our animated explainer video page.  Or if you want an explainer video for your business, let us help you

What Factors Affect The Cost of Animation?

As a buyer looking to get a new animated video production for your company, when browsing online you can see such a variety of animation costs, from £150 (uh oh!) to £20,000+ (eek!)

Here are a few reasons why the price of animated video can range so much, and how to make an informed choice when it comes to specifying the work.

Length of video

A longer animation means more work. For example, A two-minute video literally has twice as many scenes as one minute video, and they need creating, and then animating.

There are not that many economies of scale, as the work is usually bespoke to each project. Sometimes if you have a video series, some savings can be made through the series, but within one video, and your first video perhaps, nope.

Being concise with your words in the script is integral to making sure you don’t waste money here.

This storyboard is about 2.5 min video. Which is slightly on the long side for an Explainer type web video. You can see just how much work and frames that needs. A shorter video could be half these number of frames. 

Inclusion of 3D Animation

3D animation can pop up in 2D animated videos quite often, and to the inexperienced, it can be undetected. Not seeing the line between 2D and 3D is fine if you’ve not even noticed, it wants to blend in seamlessly.

Including 3D elements adds background and literally another dimension to the movement and view, so it adds more interest- instead of the same front on view you see so often with animation.

It will often be composited and be the same design style, but it gives a variety to the scene, it’s not just flat facing.

But all this means, additional specialised skills in 3D software, modelling and lighting, and then compositing – to make it look like the rest of 2D video.

See the buildings in their video have been created in 3D space, allowing a camera to pass around as it rises. This is much more interesting than a generic pan up, with a completely straight-on looking street.

Animated Characters

Including characters can add a much needed human touch to animation, which if you’re selling or teaching people can help dramatically.

Using animated characters is a great way to act out scenarios and show a real user experience and convey emotion.

However, to get them to move in an organic and realistic fashion – to be likeable takes time to draw, rig and animate.

Low-end videos that have characters will move in a jerky/ stiff way or just not much movement at all. Or worse still, they stop dead for seconds at a time…

It kind of defeats the purpose, as you lose a lot of the human connection and relatability.

Illustration style

A 2D flat colour video using vector simple shapes, most likely, will take a much less time to design and animate than a hand-drawn, and highly textured frame developed in Photoshop or Procreate, as two extreme examples.

Sometimes it’s difficult to talk about drawing and illustration, so here are a few styles, to show what I mean.

You can see the difference between these few images, they show a clear difference in the work and time that went into them.

The 2 on the top are much more detailed, one including natural textures and use of sading and light, the other using 3D to create a complex layout, compared to the bottom 2 that are more simple in nature and are line illustration or solid colour. 

And if a scene took longer to design, then you guessed it, it will more than likely need increased time to animate it. 

The quality and style of the drawings will very much depend upon your story, who the audience is and what you want them to feel.

Quality of Animation

Again this is down to time, in general, the more time your animator spends, the better the quality of the final piece.

A cheaper (quicker to produce) animation will generally be flat and move less, and there will be fewer scenes. And elements within scenes or whole scenes will be reused.

A low budget animation will also have very basic transitions from scene to scene (one thing exits, and another enters). High-quality animations tend to have more thought out transitions so that the video flows more seamlessly.

Reusing of assets, fewer scenes and fewer elements on screen at one time all saves time, and it may get the job done, but it won’t be exciting, it’s less relevant, and it’ll be less stimulating.

So there is a balance to be struck. Most animation studios will be able to show or demonstrate a few levels of animation quality so that you can see the difference for yourself.

Custom Animation

The cheaper sites offer template style make your own video, so you pick from some (often poorly) pre-designed and and pre-animated elements that you can pop together into a story.

It’s cheap, but of course, it’s massively limited and who knows how many other people are using the same elements in their video?

It’s also unlikely to fit with your brand very closely.

And of course some lower-end studios will be using templates in their work without telling you.

You can see a lot of the cost comes down to custom assets, length of video and time taken. So, in general, a higher cost animation is simply a higher quality product. Hopefully, this helps for next time you need an animated video for your business, and you can see what you’re paying for clearly.

To see a range of animated explainer video styles head to our portfolio, or to read more about what we do and what goes into our work, see the animated video production page and if you have an idea you want to chat about, contact us!

Why pick Animated Explainer Video over a Live-action Video

Both animation and live-action productions have their place as a marketing video for business, but live-action can be limited. 

Let’s explore some of the reasons for choosing an animated explainer video over a standard filmed video for your next company video.

Animated explainer video at its core is a catchy animated video generally under 2 mins long that explains something. It’s quite a vague term, but it covers most of the animated videos you see online in a broad way – and it’s much more diverse than you think. 

Be more creative

Animation is creative and can be out if this world if you want. 

Simply put, it can make you stand out and look unique.

You can show an office one minute, then a street, then a person at home, then an international space station if you fancy! And it doesn’t cost more to do so. That is not even a particularly inspiring example of what can be done with animation. 

As long as it serves the narrative, and suits the tone of the video, relates with your audience, your options are limitless. 

With a live-action video, sure you can film several locations, but time and costs add up if it’s very expansive in terms of content. Most corporate videos are quite straight forward, 1-2 locations and that’s it. 

With the limitless nature of motion design, you can say and show a lot in a very short time.

Example of a super creative animated video from Buck

Animation is versatile

Explainers videos are a lot more versatile in style than you would think. It’s not just icon sequences any more. 

Most companies pick their general corporate branding the first time they go into animation and probably choose a flat 2D design and icon for the illustration style.

It’s a safe (albeit potentially boring) bet.

But many more experienced brands will experiment with style and tone to fit each campaign.

When you draw each frame from scratch, you have ultimate flexibility. 

Animation and illustration design can achieve a very fun, or serious tone as needed. This gives you the adaptability to target new audiences, or to bring out different emotions. 

A hand-drawn animation style will usually give a friendly caring vibe, while sharp lines and angles can be more formal and business-like.

An experienced design studio can use these kinds of devices to tailor the look and feel of the animation to achieve exactly the vibe you want.

And it’s not just reserved for consumer-based brands like Cola. Even a B2B business is selling to people at the end of the day.

Duration of use

Your animation way is less likely to go out of date so quickly.

Usually, in explainer videos, any numerical figures that are referenced are not exact; for example, any charts or data you see, and any UI screens are often redesigned to simplify to look and flow. Of course, people are all fictional, unless exactly specified to copy someone.

So, because the video’s not showing such exact information, it’s likely to last longer. 

With a filmed video you can run into issues much quicker. For example, if staff leave who had been interviewed, you may need to edit them out of the video, which costs for the work and can leave holes in the content.

And so you need to organise a reshoot, or the video needs more context to explain, which kind of defeats the point. 

Or if the premises or signage are updated, you’ll feel that the video is old fashioned. 

This happens way more often than you think!

Creative Control

You have complete control with the look and feel of animation.

Sometimes on a filming day, things can just crop up… the weather is terrible, an area is closed, your piece to the camera could have been delivered better, a colleague was unwell.

And even if you have a sketched storyboard for a filmed video (but plenty of studios don’t offer this), it’s hard to know what each shot will look like.

There’s always a bit of figuring out on the shoot day… a small element of winging it. Obviously a professional will still do a good job though!

With animation, you have exact control over every scene, in advance of animation.

You’ve seen (hopefully) a written treatment, possibly sketches, style frames, an illustrated storyboard, boardomatic, animatic, then the final animation.

That’s a lot of stages to get your feedback in!

Animation can cover sensitive topics

If you need to talk about a sensitive topic, an animated explainer is a very good route to pick.

Animation gives anonymity to the subject (I mean a person here) and gives you the freedom to really explore a subject matter or tough topic without making anyone vulnerable or a target. There is no risk of exposure.

Using animation for a good cause can really amplify your message, for campaigns about for children or those in need, it can be a vital tool.

Price?

It’s not necessarily cheaper. Drawing every frame, animating takes time.

But reiterating from the points above, the animation may last longer, and it can be more tailored to your goals.

Unless you have a lot of VFX in your live-action production, maybe for a high-end TV advert, filmed video is often the same cost or cheaper than explainer animation, but we can see it’s more limited unless it’s very high concept.

Saying that… there are generally a few varying price levels of animation (this will vary from studio to studio), so if budget is tight, it’s not impossible.

But generally, the more you spend, its more time you’re paying for, and therefore a higher quality animation – it’s more immersive and mesmerising. And thus a better storytelling device.

Hopefully, these points will help show you that there’s never been a better time to get on board with explainer animation for your business.

Or at least give you food for thought before you jump onto creating a new corporate video for your business.

The options available are a lot wider than you would imagine. 

To see a range of animated explainer video styles head to our video portfolio, or if you wanted to read more about animated video production in general, or if you have an idea you want to chat about contact us

Design in Animated video – the key to success

Motion graphics are becoming more popular – many businesses are starting to learn the term when it comes to animated video, but in practice, the ‘graphics’ part is often lacking.

Often when a business is discussing creating a new video, they talk about the animation and the scenes, but often the conversation about the design style and illustration isn’t there. It’s overlooked and taken for granted as it’ll just appear and look good. 

The first brief is often ‘explainer video, maybe with my site icons’, but that’s so vague and samey, will that be the best route to tell your business message? An explainer video can be so much more than that. 

An original design concept with bespoke illustrations can lift the animation and be so much more impactful – which has a real effect on video engagement.

But talking about design is sometimes difficult for clients – they don’t know where to look for references, and they may not be able to articulate what they like. But this is where creative studios need to have the knowledge to guide them properly.

There is a lot to consider with design – it’s all about the relation to your target audience. In essence, the design will help show them how to feel, and what information is most important.

An animated video for 20s aged entrepreneurs needs to look and feel quite different from a video for internal communication purposes.

The video is also representing the brand – so it needs to look right. You may choose for it to fit in with your other branding materials or may decide to create a new campaign, or it can be stand-alone. Either is fine, but it needs to be a considered choice.

Making the video match your branding precisely as an automatic response without thought, can be restricting and potentially bland.

Design in video needs to achieve a few things:

• Clearly communicate the story
• Have the right tone
• Align with the brand
• Be cohesive
• Be unique