Animated videos and layouts are an indispensable part of marketing for B2C and particularly B2B businesses that sell complex products and services. It’s often too challenging or even impossible to describe some concepts/solutions using traditional photo and video shootings. Then animation always helps out. This means of multimedia conveys information comprehensively and stylishly, so many renowned brands use it on their websites and social media to showcase and explain their offerings as well as to convince prospects to buy or subscribe.
Using five completely different examples, we’ll consider the applicability of animation to online businesses of almost all directions. We’ll see how B2C firms (like online course platforms, fashion houses, and podcasting apps) and B2B entities (such as marketing platforms and web services) utilize animation for promotional purposes.
Animation as an Integral Part of Your Visual Identity
It goes without saying that all visual information associated with a brand is almost as important as factual content. People tend to opt for companies with videos, photos, and website designs of the best quality. Therefore, you better keep an eye out on how all types of content look on the platform your entity uses to interact with potential clients.
At the same time, it’s worth keeping in mind that weighty pictures and videos can slow down your website. In this situation, a site may suffer from a soaring bounce rate. And cart abandonment rate as well when it comes to online retailers. But, there is an efficient rescue from this “disease”. For instance, if your online shop is powered by Magento, you can optimize images for Magento 2, and the store will be loading faster. Implement this and some more optimization practices to achieve better performance of your online platform/shop/portal.
Further, we’ll consider five examples of animation that aides in sales.
1. Semrush (B2B)
This online visibility management SaaS platform provides marketers with a whole range of options for the website’s promotion and market analysis. But how do you grab one’s attention to the solution? How can you give a clear idea of what it is?
The company has chosen a creative yet classic way of representing web services: they promote animated ads on Instagram Stories, as seen in the screenshot below:
The video looks fresh, vivid, and a bit bizarre; thus, it definitely catches the eye! Even if lots of other software and service companies also use animation, each of them makes it in their unique style.
2. GUCCI (B2C)
This fashion brand turns to cartoons more often than others since giving clients unusual visual impressions is a significant part of its concept. For example, the series of animations (in the screenshot below) shows off three styles of makeup for women with different looks. These tutorials drastically differ from customary ones where the how-to videos always feature real people.
GUCCI’s animations are genuinely mesmerizing, and they reflect the extraordinary nature of the brand. There is a lovely instance of using unexpected means to be remembered. Cartoon commercials of excellent quality and with an important message have a huge potential to go viral on social media: people will be liking, sharing, and discussing them.
3. Codecademy (B2C)
Take a look at the screenshot below. Here is a new marketing campaign by Codecademy, an online platform for learning programming languages. The company decided to introduce their new course about cybersecurity using a bright drawn picture that is so fascinating to explore.
This creative image resembles a page from comics and helps to draw one’s attention to the ads. So, if your subject of promotion is something more or less abstract, then animation is indeed the right choice.
4. UserWay (B2B)
This company provides online businesses with special solutions for people with disabilities to improve websites’ accessibility. An animated video serves two aims. Firstly, it gives an idea about the problems which can be resolved with the help of the service. Secondly, it tells viewers about the core UserWay’s capabilities (see the screenshot below).
As we see, cartoons work pretty well if you have a complex idea to illustrate. Moreover, animation turns out to be the most spectacular and effective way to do so.
5. Blinkist (B2C)
Finally, below you can see an example of a book-summarizing service that launched advertising on Instagram using animated characters. All three frames of this commercial are united in one distinctive style. It looks far more refined than if Blinkist used real photos. After all, in this case, there’s no need to abide by copyright rules.
Final Word
Animation could be a highly wholesome means of shaping your ideas and offerings. Some business owners may think that drawn ads are too frivolous and don’t fit the company’s image. But examples of many respected brands prove the opposite. Some of them even use memes to promote and make themselves closer to customers (and gain new ones). Your basic serious content may remain the highest priority; however, if you want to be demanded on the market, don’t be afraid to suggest and try something fresh and eye-catching.
