How to choose between video and animation for your marketing campaign
The early stages of a video project are packed with practical questions. But it can be hard to resist wondering what the final result will look like. Video or animation?
Live-action video makes up a lot of the stuff we see on social media. Real people (or actors pretending to be real people) give your audience something to relate to. They’ve been hungry or happy or hopeful, too. From the opening seconds, they’re hooked – and along for the ride.
Animation, on the other hand, can do things live-action never could. Impossible ideas come to life in two or three dimensions. Imaginative characters can keep audiences excited while you explain something really important – while diagrams and icons can help make complicated concepts clear.
Two worthy contenders. But which do you want in your corner? To help you decide, let us show you where we’ve used them before, what the results have been and why our golden rule helps form the strongest foundation for your video project.
Live-action video builds emotional connections
For International Women’s Day, Vodafone Foundation partnered with Bright Sky to raise awareness of its app, designed for anyone concerned about domestic abuse. To discuss this very real issue required real people. So, we coordinated a massive live shoot, during which actors portrayed the women affected as well as those ready to support them without judgement. In this case, only live-action could capture the seriousness of the subject and create that connection with the audience.
Cloud services for the public sector are important. But the internet is also full of cat videos. So, when Crown Hosting was looking for a partner to help explain its offering, we knew animation was the best way to cut through. With a throwback 8-bit style and plenty of retro characters, the video helped Crown Hosting stand out even as it explained something a little bit complicated.
Of course, there are always exceptions
Sometimes, the rule is just a starting point for you to work from. That’s just what happened to us when we produced the Grumbles series for Talentsoft. The HR platform wanted to take on some of the biggest work frustrations and show how their platform could make people feel better. Surely a job for live-action, right? Actually, choosing animation here helped us bring those frustrations to life in a way that was funny, unique and, we’re proud to say, award-winning.
There might even be times when your marketing doesn’t have to choose between video and animation. That was exactly the case when we worked with Microsoft to find out how today’s school children imagine the future. The video combined live-action interviews with playful animation to bring students’ ideas to life – and capture viewers’ imaginations.
But start with this rule and you can’t go wrong
Live action builds emotional, human connections. Animation makes complicated topics easier to understand. Just as this idea guides our approach to brand video style, it should guide yours, too.
There’s lots more ideas where that came from. For more Thoughts by Nicely Done, be sure to check out the rest of our blog. And if you’ve got a video or animation project you’d like to run past us – or questions about anything you’ve read here – we’d love to hear from you.
