Whiteboard animation explainer videos have gained a lot of traction especially over the last few years. But what makes them really tick? Or why are explainer videos effective? It’s quite simple really. Visual tools and animations make the message or story really stand out. They catch instant attention and help retain it, unlike drab or lengthy prose. By bringing to life simple as well as complex subjects and even the most boring content, they engage the audience’s attention. As the viewers remain transfixed on the screen, explainer videos help drive home the message like no other form of media!
That said, it’s perhaps easier to answer the question “Why explainer videos are effective” with suitable examples that almost everyone can relate to. Remember when VHS tapes of The Lion King kept us, or our children, occupied? Or that Jane Fonda keep-fit video from the 1980s? The 80s may seem like ancient history but videos are still with us...at least the word is. Video comes from the Latin ‘videre,’ which means ‘to see.’ Videos are now fully established as part of our lives in a way they hadn’t been previously. Just last week, videos taught me the best way to turn a wooden pallet into a planter. And I am not the only one, YouTube is the web’s second biggest search engine, hitting the billion hours a day viewed milestone back in 2017.
This familiarity makes videos, and animated explainer videos especially, the perfect way to communicate with viewers, whether they are clients, customers, the general public, or anyone in between. Our brains are finely tuned to absorb information from visual content. Videos can explain and share content rapidly in entertaining and novel ways – making that information enter our heads and stay there – which is a useful attribute, and most importantly they can do this while weaving in storytelling. It’s no wonder then that explainer videos are so effective. Animated explainer videos take this effectiveness to a new level, giving you the freedom and scope to present anything.
Famous commercial examples include the animated explainers used by Dropbox while in an educational setting the RSA Animates which transformed academic and complex subjects into engaging, entertaining, memorable, and arguably the best animated explainer videos which combined have had more than 100,000,000 views.
What is an animated explainer video?
Animated explainer videos take your vision, message and story and transform them into a feast of storytelling, visual thinking and inspiring communication. This feast is then served in the perfect way to capture your complexity and depth and serve it up to your audience. Animated explainer videos and whiteboard videos do this by combining a carefully written script, rich illustration, engaging and smooth animation and a carefully selected voiceover.
Given the instant attention that these rich visual tools can capture, it’s easy to understand the enigma of explainer videos and why they are effective. These set animated explainer videos apart from ‘talking head’ and other types of explainer videos and make them the perfect choice for sharing complex or dry content in a way that audiences will enjoy and understand.
But how do explainer videos work exactly? From the creative point of view, animated explainer videos give you a blank canvas to fill with your personality and ideas. They offer a creative freedom that can bring to life almost anything you can imagine. This freedom means you can use animated explainer videos to present abstract or complex ideas and connect key points together. Animated explainer videos give you the power to create the ideal illustrations, characters, scenes and visual metaphors that will tell your story and really resonate with your audience - it’s what truly makes explainer videos really effective. Several popular formats include:
Product explainers and demonstrations
Particularly if your product isn’t something which camera footage can do justice to, animated explainer videos can bridge the gap by presenting complex processes in a clear and understandable way or turning something more abstract into more accessible visuals. Another reason why explainer videos are effective is that they also allow you to build a strong connection with your audience, for these more abstract products. Great examples from the early days of explainer videos include that famous explainer for Dropbox and an early advert for Spotify.
Videos for social media and raising awareness
Animated explainers have three core strengths that make them perfect for this. Given that they can pack in a lot of information using the four pillars of communication - audio, visual and text and animation - it’s easy to see how and why explainer videos are effective at conveying the desired message to the target audience. They can deliver this information in a powerful and engaging way by using storytelling, making your message and video entertaining and shareable.
We conducted whiteboard animation research with Professor Richard Wiseman and found that, compared with a ‘talking head’ video, the animated explainer video was 33% more entertaining and viewers were 66% more likely to share it. We have created these explainer animations for people looking to make a splash on social media and raise awareness.
We created this video for The Cares Family, a charity fighting loneliness, to use on their social media channels.
Made for The Royal Society, this video raises awareness about the careers science opens up.
Report summaries and pitching tools
Like a good espresso, animated explainer videos make information engaging, concentrated and importantly, memorable. This makes them ideal for sharing a summary or overview of important but in-depth reports, delivering call-to-actions or for pitching ideas in our increasingly virtual world. Writing for Horton International, Managing Partner Ani Närhi highlights the importance of summaries, explaining:
"Being able to summarize has become a skill that is more important than ever in today’s information overflow."
This animation summarises a report by More In Common and invites viewers to get more involved.
This animation for BlueVolt pitches their services to potential clients.
Homepage and corporate explainers
Establishing your identity, values and mission has always been important, and in a world where websites increasingly replace networking events, a new strategy is needed. Enter animated explainer videos, the tireless champion of you and your story. Whether they are sitting on your homepage, used in corporate materials or fighting your corner at virtual (or physical) events, animated explainer videos showcase your USPs, personality, story so far and what it is you can do for people. They are great at this, allowing you to include your unique style at every level - from the choice of words in the script, to who records your voiceover and the illustrations or characters featuring in the video itself.
This is our own homepage explainer video. We love it because it captures who we are, what we do and why.
This video introduces the Berkhamsted school and the education they provide.
How effective are animated explainer videos?
There are a lot of stats used to explain animated explainer video effectiveness, and these paint a very positive picture, but we believe one of the best indicators of success can be seen in the audience reaction to explainer videos. After all, the power of animated explainer videos comes from the way people engage with them. Here are two examples that show the impact a professional animated explainer video can have on an audience.
The Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development
"...this is the parenting/discipline style I was talking about. Great short video that gives you the gist."
"This is what I was telling you about last time!"
We made this animated explainer video as part of a series for The Karyn Purvis Institute. Since it was released in 2017, the Facebook version alone has moved viewers to post these comments and 164 more. These comments show the powerful connection the video made with its audience. Many share the video with others or start conversations about what it discusses. The Facebook version of this video has been viewed more than 270,000 times.
Sir Ken Robinson’s RSA Animate
"I love the visuals in this - it helps people who are visual learners to grasp the ideas he spoke super easily!"
"As a new teacher, this video really inspires me to make a difference in my own school. It won't be easy, definitely but the idea is there."
It has been a privilege to work with world class thinkers like Sir Ken Robinson, who we sadly lost last year. We created this animated explainer video as part of the The RSA Animates series. Released back in 2010, the YouTube version of this animated explainer has had almost 7000 comments and 16,656,739 views. The comments above, and so many others, show the impact of the video as an informational tool, source of inspiration and the power of the animated style.
What is the secret behind this animated explainer video effectiveness?
Why are these explainer videos so effective? What’s the secret behind their success? This secret comes in two parts. The first reason for the success and effectiveness of animated explainer videos is their versatility. They are equally at home at conferences, on monitors, smart phones and tablets. They can spread the word from YouTube, a website or social media platforms - meaning wherever your audiences spend their time, you can reach them.
The second part of their success comes from the creative process. At their heart, animated explainer videos tell stories - and from the first picture books we encounter as children to the latest novel or Netflix series, our brains are hardwired to understand and take in stories. In addition, by using illustration, animation, onscreen text and voiceovers, an animated explainer video delivers information in a way that suits a range of learning preferences. Keeping it educational, the whiteboard itself and the hand also help to establish a learning mindset.
The combination of these qualities makes animated explainers engaging, memorable and able to connect at emotional and intellectual levels - allowing you to share your message far and wide.
What are the benefits of animated explainer videos?
Professional animated explainer videos are the gifts that keep on giving. But perhaps nothing can explain why explainer videos are effective as the findings of our research with Professor Richard Wiseman, that we’ve already spoken about. And the way animated explainers make your message memorable, entertaining, and engaging, nothing else can. These qualities are great individually, but they also give animated explainer videos several strengths.
By being seen as more entertaining by viewers, animated explainers are able to hold a viewers’ attention in a world which only gets more distracting
The creative freedom and use of tools like visual metaphors allow you to make complex subjects easy to understand
Drawing on that entertainment factor, it is easier to communicate important or dry subjects such as policy changes
By using a script, voiceover, onscreen text, illustration and animation, animated explainers are able to deliver a lot of information in a small amount of time - while making it meaningful and memorable
Animated explainers are active, not passive. Whether it ends in a call to action or acts as the start of a bigger conversation, they give an audience everything they need to know and the next steps to use it
Animated explainers allow you to feature on YouTube, the world’s second biggest search engine
These benefits help explain why explainer videos are effective and also why the 2021 Wyzowl State of Video Marketing report found that 87% of marketers reported that video provided a positive return on investment. Learn more about whiteboard animation!
Supercharging stories is our passion, we’re an animated explainer video production company and we’ve brought stories to the screen for organisations like TED-Ed, the BBC, iKEA, eBay, Deloitte and the Ministry of Justice. In that time, we’ve loved working on a whole host of ideas, ranging from big abstract theories to book and product explainers. Each video is a chance to apply our creative skills and visual thinking, and for us to learn more. We create whiteboard animation explainer videos because they make information and ideas accessible to much bigger audiences.
Sharing knowledge is our passion, and we’d love to talk to you about your story and the video you want to create. Book a discovery call today!
Not everything is better remote, as we’re sure anyone who has tried to deliver remote training sessions will agree. We’re happy to announce that there is a better way to deliver remote training: whiteboard explainer videos.