How businesses can benefit from using animation in their advertising
What is the benefit of using animation in advertising?
Many people associate animation with entertainment, i.e. film, gaming and television. However, animation is a multibillion-dollar, global industry with a place in more major industries than you think, including TV advertising. Today, animation has become one of the biggest advertising trends, with famous companies such as Cadbury using it to promote their products or services.
Despite animation being a powerful marketing tool, not many businesses leverage it to their benefit. Here is a closer look at animation in TV advertising and how beneficial it is for companies.
What is animated advertising?
Simply put, animated ads are short commercial videos meant to market a company’s products or services. Animated commercials are usually creative, informative, and entertaining for viewers. They’re a great way to tell consumers compelling stories about your brand while maintaining the human emotional touch. These two play a significant role in convincing your target audience to take action, whether it’s checking out your website, buying your products in store, or subscribing to your monthly services.
A lot goes into creating animated ads, from writing the stellar video script to using technology to animate the CG (computer-generated) characters, product renders and environments. This is why many businesses work with visual effects artists and design companies that specialise in creating animated videos, using effects to help tell a story, make a product stand out and capture the imagination of audiences.
But just how can visual effects and animation help boost the advertising of your business?
How advertising helps businesses
In general, advertising of any kind can help your business grow and achieve its goals. But, animated ads can do much more, including:
1. Helping your brand stand out
Modern customers quickly click off standard promotional speeches and forms of advertising because they can be boring. They want something fresh, entertaining and intriguing instead, and this is where animated ads come in. Animated ads are short, creative and quickly draw your audience’s attention. They’re also engaging and make your brand interesting, ensuring you stand out from your competitors.
2. Raising your brand awareness
Animated ads are one of the best ways to attract new customers. They quickly showcase and communicate your brand’s best qualities, slogan and abilities, raising your brand’s awareness and allowing you to gain a new audience.
3. Making complex products and information easier to understand
Another important part of business marketing involves ensuring your customers know your products and know what you sell. Animated commercials allow companies to communicate even the most complex business concepts and marketing messages in a simple form. For instance, you can break down a complex idea into different scenes and situations, which are then animated to create a fun yet informative video that’s easier to consume.
4. Helping you to meet your business goals
Most businesses invest in advertising to launch a product or service and increase sales and conversions. With animated ads, you can perfectly present a new product to your target audience, clearly describing its benefits. Similarly, you can promote your new product with an animated video to a broader audience on social media platforms to help increase your sales and conversions.
Top four examples of entertaining animated commercials
Now that you know how animation in advertising can help your business, let’s look at some of the best animation examples in TV advertising history. From ideas and inspiration to cool concepts and brand messages, here are some standout TV adverts over the years:
Compare the Meerkat
This animated ad creatively uses wordplay to advertise the company’s car insurance comparison services. It’s simple yet effective as the words “meerkat” and “market” become the main subject and relay the intended message quite literally.
Metro Trains- Dumb Ways to Die
This animated commercial boasts over 220 million views on YouTube, showing how successful the ad is. Published on the platform in 2012, its oddly soothing tune mixed with the simple CG cartoon characters dancing around immediately captures your attention and communicates the message the brand is trying to deliver.
John Lewis – The Bear and the Hare
Every year people await the release of the John Lewis Christmas advert. This advertising masterpiece from 2013 is proof that animation is a powerful marketing tool. Using 2D characters, this animated ad eases you into the Christmas spirit of giving without saying much – just a beautiful song playing throughout.
Coca-Cola – Video game
Coca-Cola has created several successful animated video ads in its time, and this commercial is just one of many memorable ones. The GTA-inspired animated ad is not only funny but also on-message, i.e. drink Coca-Cola.
