Businesses, from small start-ups to mass conglomerates, use animated videos. These can be deployed in a variety of ways, but they are perhaps most successfully employed in marketing campaigns.

There is a long history of animation in advertising, in fact the first animated advert can be traced back to 1914 (although some people argue this advert could be dated back to as early as 1899). While the early animation style of Matches: An Appeal is rudimentary and stilted by twenty-first century standards, it is telling that advertisers knew so early in the media marketing game how effective animation could be.

Video has continued to grow in popularity throughout the years, especially since the adoption of social media by half of the world’s population. Currently, 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool – and 55% have created or commissioned animated videos (Wyzowl, 2023). Animation, especially 2D animation, is a fantastic money saver – which is cheaper to produce compared to 3D animation and live-action. Could 2023 see a trend for animated marketing content?

Alternatively, listen to or watch The Power of Animation below!

To Cut Marketing or Not To Cut Marketing: That Is Not The Question

During economic hardship, businesses have to assess where to spend and where to save money. The marketing department is often at risk – as businesses weigh up whether to increase spend to gain customers or decrease the budget to mitigate profit loss.

B2B companies typically spend between 2-5% of their revenue on marketing, while B2C invest a higher proportion – between 5-10%. The economic climate has already had an impact on revenue, particularly for small businesses. Four in five small business owners in the UK reported that they are worried about how the cost of living crisis is affecting them. A drop in revenue means it may still be necessary to trim the marketing budget – but don’t slash it to ribbons!

A large short-term reduction in your marketing strategy can have long-term impacts. If your content on social media dries up and adverts stop running, not only will your conversions drop, but it will be harder to bounce back once the economy improves and your business is ready to reinvest in its marketing strategies. It’s important to maintain your strategy, however this looks for a business of your size. Keep posting on social media, run adverts, and share videos. 

Since Wyzowl began its data collection in 2016, 2023 has seen the highest response for businesses using video as a marketing tool (91%), and rating video as an ‘important part’ of their marketing strategy (96%).

At a time when marketing budgets may be reduced, the cost of producing video may cause a shift in these statistics as the year progresses. Currently, 42% of video marketers spend on average less than $500 on the production of a video. The more a video costs, the less businesses invest in this resource.

Fortunately there is another option: animation.

Animated characters can also do things that would be impossible in live-action, making it a powerful storytelling medium. If your business’ logo is a character, animation can bring them to life in a way live-action couldn’t. Animation offers a vast variety of styles and techniques, which means these videos can be tailored to reflect your brand.

Blast Off Your Brand With an Animated Lift-Off

In a 2022 survey of clients who had commissioned an animated video, Sparkol reported 89% thought animated videos were worth the investment in time and money and 90% said they were highly effective in their work. This is because animated videos are excellent at capturing the audience’s attention and create a long-lasting impression: memory is improved by 92% from an animated video when compared to a talking head video.

The most commonly requested animated video remains the whiteboard style, however, as previously inaccessible animation styles become less expensive – such as 3D animation – there is greater diversity in the styles chosen. With the advent of AI generated content, this accessibility could become even greater.

AI is already deployed by high-end and free video editing apps, however, complete AI video creation is currently unavailable. Apps like Synthesia can only make AI-driven changes to existing footage, but the next step could come soon. Considering the current debate on copyright infringements, however, only time will tell how this pans out and how economically accessible these tools will be.

There are plenty of tools on the market to make your own animated video, although a video production company creates higher quality animation and, in the long run, it usually works out cheaper.

There are three key reasons why animation resonates with its audience, which is why you should consider adding animated video to your marketing strategy:

Squideo has touched on the art of brand storytelling before and animated videos are fantastic at amplifying the power of your brand. Animation, unlike live-action, is easy to customise which means the entire video can be reflective of your company branding such as the inclusion of your logo and colour palette. Consistency should be maintained between each video you create, so viewers of the video can immediately connect it to your brand.

The beauty of animated videos is, as long as the customisable files are maintained, it’s easy to change. If your company rebrands five years down the line, old content can easily be modified to match your new look. Try doing that with live-action videos!

Animated videos create faster and stronger connections between brands and their target audiences than static images. It leaves less to the imagination, shares your message, captivates viewers, and tells your story more effectively. 

Year by year, more marketing strategies deploy videos. This trend is tied to the growth of video views. In 2022, the average person watched nineteen hours’ worth of videos per week. This has fallen slightly in 2023 to seventeen hours, although this was anticipated post-lockdowns.

According to Wyzowl (2023), 95% of marketers said that video marketing helped them increase brand awareness. It also generates leads (90%), increases traffic (91%), and boosts sales conversion (87%). 

Once your animated video is created, it can be shared far and wide from mass to direct marketing:

• Adverts. Whether it’s going on TV, a billboard, social media platform, or website banner, animated videos are  great eye-catchers.
• Emails. Embed your video directly into an  email. Your mailing list doesn’t even have to leave their inbox to watch it.
• GIFs. Choose a snippet of the video to create your own  GIF. These can be added to sites like GIPHY and used by your customers.
• Social Media Posts. Remember to  customise the dimensions of your video to suit landscape and reel formatting.
• Onboarding for employees and customers.  Introduce people to your brand with a video. It’s more engaging than a handbook!

Whoomp! (That’s Your Video)

To create the right video for your marketing strategy, it’s important to align your initial project plan to your marketing goals. Who is your audience? What do you want them to do after watching your video? How should the video make them feel?

Identify your S.M.A.R.T goals early on. This will help track the success of your animated video once it has been released onto your chosen platform.

Specific,

Measurable,

Achievable,

Relevant, and

Time-Bound.

Video marketers often use several other KPIs to track the success of their video. These include click-through rates (CTR), subscriber and follower numbers, social shares and bounces. An important KPI to look at, especially before creating new content, is the video watch time.

45% of people who watch the first three seconds of a video will keep watching for at least thirty seconds – which is the minority of viewers. If your watch time is below this average, there’s something about your video that’s failing to catch the audiences’ attention during this critical three second window. Within a few seconds, your audience should ideally know who made the video (that’s where your branding comes in) and what the video is about (so they know if it’s relevant to them).

By breaking down two of Squideo’s latest videos, we’ll explore some of the key intentions behind these animation campaigns and gain insight into the marketing strategy of these companies.

Inntravel | The Slow Holiday People

The team at Inntravel specialise in self-guided cycling and walking holiday packages, however sales was not the main focus of their video. Instead, they needed an explainer video. Through discussions with their sales team and existing customers, Inntravel found a lot of its target demographic audience did not understand what a self-guided holiday was.

Before they could sell their package holidays, Inntravel needed a video which explained what a self-guided holiday is and what its benefits are. Their production brief asked for a video that could be shared by their sales and customer service teams, and uploaded to their social media accounts.

Bleach Cyber | Cybersecurity… simply!

Compared to Inntravel, this video for Bleach Cyber is all about the sale. This new software company, founded in 2022, wanted to build brand and product awareness fast – which is why their production brief specified the need for a bold, branding-heavy video. They needed to get their mission and values across, establishing their brand for a successful future.

Bleach Cyber is all about innovation, but, since their company is new, animation worked better for them than live-action. Features that may change in design could be demonstrated through simplified animation, and their concept was conveyed through icons rather than footage of their growing team or offices.

Key Insights Into Animated Video Marketing in 2023

Marketing strategies could look different in 2023, as the UK economy continues to struggle with the cost of living crisis and high energy prices. 

• The UK is expected to see the biggest fall in spending power for 70 years in 2023 (BBC, 2023).
• Four in five British small business owners are worried about the cost of living crisis (Simply Business, 2023).
• B2B companies typically spend between 2-5% of their revenue on marketing, while B2C invest between 5-10% (BDC, 2019).

Companies tend to cut marketing budgets during a recession, but firms that maintain their marketing spend typically fare better (Harvard Business Review, 2020).

While video continues to be a central tenant to the majority of business marketing strategies, as companies look for ways to save money, animation could start becoming more popular than live-action in 2023.

• In 2023, 91% of businesses plan to use video as a marketing tool and 96% rate video as an ‘important part’ of their marketing strategy (Wyzowl, 2023).
• 66% of videos created by businesses are live-action (Wyzowl, 2023).
• In 2022, 89% of surveyed clients thought animated videos were worth the investment in time and money, and 90% said they were highly effective in their work (Sparkol, 2022).

Not only is animation, on average, cheaper than creating a live-action video, but animated videos are also excellent at capturing audience attention and creating a long-lasting impression.

• Memory is improved by 92% when watching an animated video when compared to a talking head video (Richard Lowe, 2004).
• 60% of Cartoon Network’s audience was aged between 18 and 49 (Statista, 2018).
• In 2023, the average person watches seventeen hours of video per week, down from nineteen hours in 2022 (Wyzowl, 2023).
• 45% of people who watch the first three seconds of a video will keep watching for at least thirty seconds (HubSpot, 2022).

Identify your S.M.A.R.T goals, then it’s time to get started.

Conclusion

Squideo creates professional, goal-orientated and powerful animated videos that entertain, educate and engage your target audience.

We're an independent, UK-based animated video production company. Since 2015, our in-house creative team have produced over 5000 explainer videos for every industry imaginable; everything from shiny ultra-corporate pitches, to cartoons and everything in between!

We take key information, then support and guide you through a unique creative process, resulting in a professional quality explainer video that looks great and sends exactly the right message.

Squideo carefully crafts each video to be unique to your goals without the hefty price tag, and supports you through the process to help you generate the best possible ROI. That’s why Squideo is trusted by leading brands across the world.

Ready to create an animated video for your company? Watch the video below to get a better understanding of how Squideo can help promote your business, then get in touch with us to find out more!

Sources

• Allie Decker, HubSpot. ‘What is Branding? Understanding its Importance in 2023’ [June 2023]. Link.
• Anon, insivia. ‘2023 Report: Most Important Marketing Stats in the Software & SaaS Industry’ [May 2023]. Link.
• Anon, Sparkol. ‘The State of Animation: 2022 Report’ [February 2022]. Link.
• Anon, Wyzowl. ‘Video Marketing Statistics 2023’ [May 2023]. Link.
• Dave Chaffey, SmartInsights. ‘Global social media statistics research summary 2023’ [May 2023]. Link.
• George T. Doran, Management Review. ‘There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives’ [November 1981].
• Katie Denlinger et al, DeLoitte Insights. ‘Global Marketing Trends 2023: Resilient seeds for growth’ [January 2023]. Link.
• Kristen McCormick, WordStream. ’75 Staggering Video Marketing Statistics’ [April 2022]. Link.
• Nirmalya Kumar & Koen Pauwels, Harvard Business Review. ‘Don’t Cut Your Marketing Budget in a Recession’ [August 2020]. Link.