Whiteboard Animations: User Info-tainment

Our clients are finding it harder and harder to target a specific audience with their critical message. In keeping with the recent trend toward “visual content,” and in particular the ability of video to offer a large amount of information in a short amount of time,  we’ve been creating more aof what we call “explainer” videos. These are videos which distill  complex topics, often related to arcane issues of policy and politics, into short, digestible and hopefully entertaining presentations.  

The evidence is clear. If you are presenting information to a live audience, studies show that three days  after the event, people retain only 10 percent of what they heard from your oral presentation, 35 percent  from your visual presentation, but 65 percent from a combined visual and oral presentation.  Sounds like video:)

Our clients have had a lot of success distributing “whiteboard” videos. The concept is to videotape an artist as they are drawing a scene or series of scenes. The video is sped up to match a pre-recorded voice track.  These can be posted on a website or they can be used during conferences, like a recent video we created for the U.S. Postal Service.

Created with our friends at Maga Design and with cartoonist Kevin Rechin, we created a series of short, animated interstitials to give each speech at the conference some context and to introduce the speakers. Here’s an example of one of those videos.

By capturing the creative process of a piece of artwork, a whiteboard animation garners genuine anticipation that keeps people watching to the end. And  if the drawing is well planned, you can surprise the audience by tieing in relevant concepts in creative ways.

There’s also a certain magic to presenting the information as a cartoon. It’s an art form that immediately engenders affection from the audience. It also allows you to leverage sarcasm, irony, and other forms of humor in ways you would not be able to do in a regular video. It gives you freedom to be a little outrageous without being mean, and thus improves your chances of capturing an audience.

Because whiteboard videos are still relatively novel, they are shared more often among viewers, giving your campaign a edge up in the social media sphere.

Consider using a whiteboard animation as a creative alternative to present your message in a infortaining way.

4Site Interactive Studios is a talented troupe of web professionals who are passionate about creating tools to support digital marketers. We love to hear from our community! Reach out to us with your thoughts and questions. And don’t forget to subscribe below to get notified when we post new blogs – no spam, just content👍🏼