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But why exactly is animation becoming one of the decade’s advertising buzzwords?When deployed in adverts, animation has immense power. Not only does its characterful, personable style translate to immediate engagement, but its bold design and unique creative elements make videos memorable, resulting in dramatically increased brand awareness and brand recognition figures. 

Plus, all of these impressive results can be achieved whilst keeping the animation firmly on brand. By working with a professional animator, you can ensure that your brand’s colours, logos, tone and other multisensory elements of your brand identity are featured throughout.

So, if you’re thinking about investing in animated adverts, keep reading. Below, we’ve shared our expert insights into how you can create animated adverts that captivate viewers, boost engagement and deliver clear, measurable results.

The power of animation in captivating audiences

Animation - in a way that is unique to almost any other medium - has an extraordinary ability to evoke emotional responses. 

This is one of the core reasons why animation is such an engaging medium, and its characters and messages are made so memorable.  

Animated videos can make audiences feel a huge range of different emotions. Then, by evoking a personal, emotive response from the viewers, these videos can unlock a whole new level of engagement. 

Let’s explore some of the feelings that animation can create in more detail:
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• Delight - the combination of bold captivating design, energetic adventures and personable animated characters can create genuine joy amongst the viewers. Animation instinctively lends itself to fun, playful content, making it ideally suited to evoking feelings of delight. 
• Empathy - with careful character work, animated videos can establish a genuine connection between the viewer and the characters on the screen. Then, as the characters go through the storyline, viewers can relate to them, and feel empathy for them. A great example of this is our video with Ford, which speaks to the relatable topic of children growing up all-too-quickly. 
• Excitement - animations can also be made dynamic and fast-paced, with the characters following a dramatic storyline. Animation’s ability to create any action or activity in any setting makes it a fantastic choice for brands looking to devise exciting content. 
• Comfort - at the other end of the spectrum, animation can also achieve a warm, familiar and cosy aesthetic. These animations often deploy a traditional style of animation, to achieve charming visuals and a sense of comfort amongst viewers. 
• Inspiration - when it comes to ingenious creativity, few mediums rival animation. The best animated adverts are brimming with bold, unique ideas, making viewers come away feeling inspired. One of our favourite examples of this is our animated social campaign with Deliveroo. This advert takes Deliveroo’s key USPs, and articulates them in a completely new way.
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What makes adverts memorable?

We’ve already explored emotional responses as one of the most valuable properties of animation. Undoubtedly, one of animation’s other key benefits is its memorability. 

But, what is it that makes some adverts more memorable than others? And, how does animation deliver these qualities? 
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• Creative concepts - distinctive creativity is one of the most effective ways to make content memorable. This can be deployed in everything from bold colour palettes, to other worldly settings and fun-filled characters. 
• Emotional impacts - alongside its engagement benefits, audiences are far more likely to remember a video if it evoked an emotional reaction from them. 
• Clear message and storyline - in addition to creativity and emotional resonance, adverts also need a clear message. The more succinct and punchy the message, the more likely your audience will be to remember it. 
• Catchy taglines - similarly, advert taglines also need to be punchy and easy to remember. Just like the visuals, the advert’s message and CTA need to be delivered creatively, while still being clear and easy to follow. 
• Brand association - your branding and your adverts should have a mutually beneficial relationship. Your adverts need to have a very strong sense of brand identity, and each should strengthen your audience’s awareness of the other. 
• Uniqueness - by ensuring adverts stand out from the crowd, marketers can increase the likelihood that audiences will remember their wacky ideas. 
• Relatable and personable characters - whether your characters are a growing family or aliens from Mars, they need to resonate with your viewers. Personable, engaging and relatable characters are the key to ensuring an advert hits the high notes.  

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When done right, animated adverts achieve dramatically higher memorability, which translates into strengthened brand identity, increased brand awareness and brand recognition. 

In Layman’s terms this means that, when a customer wants to buy or recommend a product, your brand is more likely to pop into their minds (even if the last time that they saw your advert was weeks ago). 

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Crafting compelling stories for animated adverts

We’ve mentioned storytelling numerous times. But, in the case of an advert, what does storytelling actually involve? 

How can you deploy this technique, without resorting to all the stereotypes of witches, dragons, castles and princesses? 

When it comes to crafting a compelling story, your animated advert will need the following:

• An engaging plot - think outside of the box, to create a plot that your audience won’t have seen before. Whether you want to fill it with action and adventure, or a cosy and heartwarming narrative, make sure you do things differently to your competitors. 
• A hook - building on the plot point, you’ll need to successfully ‘hook’ your viewers, so that their attention is kept on the advert, right until the end. Your hook could be a dramatic turn of events, a cliffhanger moment, a question that needs answering, or a series of compelling visual elements, for example. 
• Strong, memorable characters - your characters need to have clearly defined personalities and visuals. Plus, alongside their individuality, they also need to be relatable enough that your viewers can resonate with them or feel empathetic towards them. 
• A creative location - you should also extend your creativity towards the location that you devise. One of the biggest perks of animation is that you can create absolutely any location that takes your fancy. So, choose your location with as much care as you do your characters.  
• A clear objective - the best animated adverts have been carefully planned, with the aim of achieving one specific objective. Your advert will need to be focused on one clear message and geared towards one clear KPI.
• Appealing to the audience’s emotions - as you plan your characters and shape your plot, make sure that you are considering how your audience will react. Think about what emotion you would like to evoke from them, then focus the advert’s elements around achieving this response, in an authentic and subtle way. 
• Knowing and understanding your audience - make sure that you not only know clearly who your target market is, but that you also fully understand what is most likely to engage them. With each creative decision you make, think about whether it is in-line with what your target audience would want.  

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Case studies: Successful animated adverts that made an impact

At OK Social, we are a professional video animation agency. So, it’s fair to say, we’ve created a fair few animated adverts in our time. Here are two of our most recent animated adverts, which we think made the biggest impact on audiences.
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Nākd

We recently worked with the Nākd team, to create an animation that would match their bold new rebrand. 

For us, this video perfectly delivers on the ‘simple yet effective’ front. The client’s aim was to highlight the bar’s all-natural ingredients, while still speaking to its youthful brand identity and modern approach. 

To achieve this, we filled the video with the brand’s bright colours and modern typography. We also created the fun ‘smoosh’ animation, which saw illustrations of the bar’s natural ingredients squished together.
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Cycling World Championships

The core aim of this advert was to highlight the inclusivity of this event. Working with the Union Cycliste Internationale team, we wanted to build awareness of the world championships, and unite the entire cycling community within one video.  

So, since the animation needed to speak to all cycling disciplines, we used a continuous parallax animation. This allowed the viewer to follow all the cyclists along their journey, and see just how dynamic and varied the sport is. 
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Conclusion

As you can see, the best animations aren’t made overnight. In order to be a success, your advert needs to strike an emotional chord with the viewer, deploy bold creative design, and deliver its targeted message clearly. 

By following these advertising best practices - and not being afraid to think outside of the box! - you can create an animated advert that takes your brand identity to a whole new level. 

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Why work with an animation agency like OK Social?

OK Social is a video animation agency, with a team of highly skilled and experienced animators. Our team contains specialists for the entire animation process, including storyboarding, illustrations, design, voiceovers and sound effects professionals. 

We have extensive experience working with brands - spanning all sectors, industries, sizes and services - to deliver high performing animated adverts. These videos are precisely geared to meet all of their specific KPIs, and their design is firmly on brand, across all elements. 

It’s for these reasons that we’ve been trusted by brands like Coca-Cola, Ford, the BBC and Deliveroo, to create their animated advertising campaigns. 

So, to find out more about the benefits of working with a professional video animation agency, or to enlist our team to make your advertising campaign a smash hit, don’t hesitate to get in touch.