In 1944, two psychologists made a brief animated movie. Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel’s movie was part of a study entitled “An Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior,” and consisted of two triangles, a dot, and a box:
These inanimate objects moved around the screen and “interacted” with each other. When test subjects were asked to describe the actions of the triangles, dot, and box they explained what they saw in terms of a story.
“Oh, that one is a bully!”
“They’re fighting over the girl.”
“Oh no! The dot is trapped!”
Please understand, this simple animated black and white movie didn’t have music, didn’t have voices or sound effects—it was simply two triangles, a dot, and a box. Yet the only way to explain what the viewers were watching, each resorted to giving the objects personalities and telling a story!
“Results from a dozen prominent cognitive scientists and developmental psychologists have confirmed that human minds do rely on stories and on story architecture as the primary roadmap for understanding, making sense of, remembering our lives—as well as countless experiences and narratives along the way,” reports Kendall Haven, in his book Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story. He continues, “In our enlightened, literate, scientific, rational, advanced world, it is still story structure that lies at the core of human mental functioning.”
Stories are the most efficient and effective structural vehicles to use if you need to motivate, teach and communicate factual, conceptual, and tacit information (that’s stuff that has to do with attitudes, beliefs, values, and expectations).
For example, your product isn’t “just a desk lamp,” look at what Pixar did with their desk lamp!
Tell a story! Problem – Solution. A day in the life of… How it was before your product or service and how much better it is now. Here’s a Problem – Solution examle:
This is a brief animation we did for the National Safety Council for their campaign about “listening to your car”:
The takeaway is this: the next time your organization needs to provide employee orientation or training, or explain how your mousetrap is better than all other mousetraps, start with a story!
Sometimes it doesn’t work to just tell your audience how your company can be essential to their business plan and how they need you so they can live a long and fruitful life. There are a lot of ads that are patronizing to the audience with incredibly dull narratives and poor acting. Perhaps by explaining what you do will persuade consumers better than any actor pretending to care about your company ever could. But here’s the problem, sitting and explaining your company is boring. It’s not engaging, it’s uninspired and it’s so very boring. Like, Jane Austen narrated by Ben Stein boring. So how do you balance out an entertaining video and explaining your company’s concepts and ideas?
Whiteboard explainer videos, of course! Let’s go through why.
ILLUSTRATIONS CAN HELP CONVEY COMPLEX CONCEPTS EASIER. Visual concepts are a driving force that allows your audience to grasp your ideas easier. The perfect example are the before and after pictures of meth addicts, though grisly they may be. The before pictures shows a healthy person who doesn’t seem to have any effects of drug abuse. The after pictures show the devastating and shocking effect that meth has on the human body. It appears as though the life had been sucked out of them. Without having to go into detail on how the drug has this effect, or why the person started to take the drug, the story of how it destroys you is clearly presented instantly.
WATCHING THE CREATION OF THE VISUALS IS CAPTIVATING. As the artist creates characters, environment and situations, the viewer is watching the story unfold in front of them. The simplicity of being able to watch that process pulls in the viewer and in turn they are keen on watching to see what comes next. Being able to see the illustration come to life adds a human touch to the video. Rather than having a polished animation from start to finish, the viewer gets to connect with the person behind the drawing. Knowing there is somebody behind that pen lets the viewer know there are people behind the drawing, just like there are people behind your company.
SIMPLE AND AFFORDABLE. Without having to use a crowded infographic that can come across more complex than it intends to be, a whiteboard animation is simple and tells your story without having to assault your viewer with statistics and mission statements. Perhaps the thing that stops most people from using video for their company is the cost. Luckily whiteboard explainer videos are incredibly cost effective and can reach a large number of people quickly.
USING NARRATIVE CAN PERSUADE AND MOTIVATE VIEWERS. Any parent knows the influence any kids TV show has on their children. Why when I was a lad, I too became a victim of Saturday morning television shows and for about 2 years straight dressed up like Pee Wee Herman…. EVERYDAY. It happened, deal with it. Just because the audience you have are now older and wiser doesn’t mean they can’t be persuaded by an engaging video. A study by LaMarre and Landreville in 2009 found that the difference of watching a film that reenacted a historical event and a documentary on the same subject had similar levels of issue interest and engagement with the narrative presented. Fictional stories are as effective as factual stories in persuading and shifting ideas related to the narrative. Both can be engaging and compelling experience for the viewer.
EASY TO DISTRIBUTE. Distribution of digital video is incredibly simple. A video can be uploaded to a many platforms an infinite amount of times. It can be sent in an email to consumers or link to your YouTube account. The entire world can take part of your company and the video can work its magic every hour of every day. Reaching your audience has been easier than ever.
A promotional video using whiteboard animation can present a complex subject matter into something that can be easily understood while being entertaining. That entertaining video can retain a high engagement rate and rack up views to direct consumers to your company. It’s simple, affordable, it’s easy to distribute to your clients and perhaps you’ll be able to have some free time to catch some Pee Wee Herman yourself. If that’s your thing, it’s certainly mine.
Whiteboard animation not only has the highest viewer retention rate, it is the most flexible of video marketing mediums. It’s endlessly versatile – appealing to all kinds of learning styles – and fully ready to incorporate your company’s unique personality.
Let’s try a little experiment – read this sentence:
To successfully market a new product, ensure your brand is in the foreground by creatively inspiring customers; capturing their attention with exciting images and catering to their sense of fun and imagination.
Now, in ten days close your eyes and repeat that sentence back to me. No? Alright, get somebody to read the sentence aloud to you, and then in ten days repeat it back to them. Or, maybe you prefer to look at this:
If you are able to repeat this sentence word for word after ten days, you’re awesome. If you can repeat back the general idea of the sentence, you’re less awesome, but still pretty great. If after ten days you can’t remember it at all, join the club.
But despite whether you are a visual or auditory learner, when an element of humor is added, the general idea of that long, boring statement is much easier to remember and has the potential to be stored in our memories for much longer. Marketers need keep this in mind when creating promotional videos, as well as the different learning styles in order to make a significant impression on consumers.
There are three distinct learning categories that every person falls into: Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic. Visual learners perform best when information is brought to them in a visual manner such as text or images. They thrive on illustrations, charts, diagrams, etc. These are the note-takers; they often feel a need to convert the spoken word into text. Auditory learners do best when they can hear the instructions through a CD or cassette tape or through somebody simply talking to them. An auditory learner is able to process, comprehend and retain information given during a lecture with a high level of accuracy. These are the ones whose heads never nod during conferences. Kinesthetic learners are the goers and doers. They need to learn by touching, holding, trying and failing and trying again.
While we all have a dominant learning style, everyone benefits in some way from each. The reality is that we all have custom learning styles that vary in combinations of visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning. Ideally, your video marketing campaign would be able to incorporate each of these three styles when creating an advertisement to inform consumers of your product. However, kinesthetic is hard to put into video form, so what marketers usually have left to work with is visual and auditory. And there’s good news for marketers: video is the easiest and most effective way of combining visual and auditory learning styles in order to appeal to all consumers! Video combines auditory instruction with visual. Not only are viewers hearing about all the benefits your product or service provides, they can see those benefits with their very own eyes.
However, simply making a video won’t guarantee a boost in sales. You need a way to make your video stand out from the millions of other online videos fighting for views. After you’ve catered to consumers’ different learning styles, how are you going to keep their attention?
1. Use Whiteboard
Whiteboard animation has proven time and time again that it is the medium viewers prefer. Its viewer abandonment rate is as low as 30% for a two-minute video. This is largely due to its unique use of images and text combined with audible narration. People are fascinated with the idea of watching an illustration come to life before them, and that initially captures and then holds their attention. The images are fun, colorful and creative. The text is even fun colorful and creative, and the narration ties it all together, guiding emotion and sparking excitement throughout the scenes.
2. Never Skip Out on Background Music.
A seemingly minuscule detail, background music is pertinent to your advertisement. Music gives life to video and provides a certain rhythm that viewers crave. It fills in intentional or unintentional dead spots, making the whole video seamless and fluid. Be aware of the type of background music, though. You don’t want to play smooth jazz behind a promotion for an amusement park – that might give viewers the idea that the park was specifically designed for attendees aged 55 and up. On the other hand, you don’t want to put an ad for orthopedic shoes on top of Usher’s best selling track. You just won’t get the reception your video deserves.
3. Make ‘em Laugh
Humor is one of the most important features your video can possess. A study presented at the American Psychological Society found that the use of humor in an educational setting significantly boosts interest and participation. This is incredibly applicable to video marketing, because essentially, your video is being produced to educate consumers about your product. The study concluded by saying, “Humor is… a social lubricant. It can facilitate interactions, and that is exactly what we found.
Animated Whiteboard Videos by Ydraw show Higher Return on Investment
Animated Whiteboard videos have become very popular over the last couple of months. Animated Whiteboard video have been seen on ESPN, numbers never lie, the Golf Channel (David Feherty) and last but not least UPS which was one of the first animated whiteboard videos to come on the market.
Here is a simple Whiteboard Video created by Ydraw so that you can see what we are talking about.
Marketing Videos by Ydraw show a Higher Return on Investment
With each whiteboard animation video released by Ydraw, there is more data that shows the success of video scribing. Ydraw has seen animated whiteboard videos provide companies with a:
Higher click through rate compared to previous marketing videos (more views)
Increased ROI (Return on Investment)
85% increase in sales
400% increase on views
Why does your company need whiteboard videos anyway? The short answer is because you want more leads, more views, and more money. It is not the video you need it is the actual results that the video produces. That is what you need! Right? And why should you get a professional to do your video? When you can … record a 2 minute video from your I-phone, edit it on your computer, upload it to YouTube, and in no time…. Voila!! A thousand people view your video in a weeks time, Business comes rolling in and life is great. Yeah… I wish it were that simple. We are happy you are reading this text, our job is to prevent you from making the same old mistakes that others make And save you a butt load of time in the process. That is a great deal.. Right? We want your videos to be viewed more than 7 times (5 of which were because of you and the nifty “refresh” button).
