6 Different Styles of Animated Explainer Videos

6 Different Styles of Animated Explainer Videos

[vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]One of the advantages of implementing video into your marketing efforts is that it’s such a flexible medium to work with. There are dozens of different types of marketing videos that you can make that achieve various goals.

Not to mention that you can inject a bit of style into your video production that helps to strengthen your brand identity as well. One type of video that is quite common is the explainer video. Explainer videos are a useful way to explain or promote your company, products or services to consumers in a short and engaging way.

Most explainer videos tend to be between 60 and 90 seconds long, making them easy for viewers to digest. One of the most popular types of explainer videos in recent years is the animated explainer video.

Animation provides a visual flourish that captures the interest of viewers in a very effective manner right off the bat. The following are six different types of animated explainer videos that you may want to consider implementing into your video content marketing strategy:

1. Corporate Animated Explainer Videos

If you’re providing detailed information about a product or service, a corporate animated explainer video is an effective way to do so. There tend to be a lot of elements at play in a typical corporate explainer video.

Many of these videos will use a voice over narration describing a product or service, with a mixture of motion graphics, typography and images to illustrate that narration. This is especially helpful for videos that are explaining multiple features of a product, such as a software.

While the voiceover is explaining the software’s functions, motion graphics can illustrate those functions step-by-step. The use of typography helps emphasize important words and sentences from the narration.

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2. Live Action Explainer Videos

You can create a very effective explainer video by filming people explaining a product or service, but keep the visuals interesting by mixing in on-screen text, icons, images or color-change.

By changing up some of the visuals but also sound-effects, you can keep people engaged in the overall momentum and message of the video. A great example of this is our explainer video on “How Much Does A Video Cost?”

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3. Cartoon Style Explainer Videos

Explainer videos that use cartoons can help to make a subject more lighthearted and amusing. Cartoons can take a subject that many perceive to be uninteresting and make it a lot more entertaining! For example, a short explainer video on recycling may bore a lot of people.

However, if you use a cartoon character that is animated to illustrate the tips explained by the narration, the subject matter instantly becomes more entertaining – in part because we relate cartoons to our childhood. Of course, keep in mind, you should only use cartoons when appropriate.

4. Whiteboard Animation Explainer Videos

The way a whiteboard animation explainer video works is by filming somebody’s hand as they draw or write your message on a whiteboard and then speed it up in post production. Whiteboard animation has a very unique look to it and makes it seem like you’re blending real life with animation, which in a sense, you are!

However, even though all of this can be done by having an artist simply draw on the whiteboard, you can also create the whole video in post and simply make it look like whiteboard drawings. This allows you to create more detailed drawings that may have taken too long to do by hand.

Whiteboard animation is a great way to animate a step-by-step process or a story that’s being explained by a narrator. You can implement both drawings and text into a whiteboard animation to highlight different points in the story or process. This makes whiteboard animation videos particularly effective for demo videos, concept pitches and corporate training videos.

5. Kinetic Type Animation Explainer Videos

Kinetic type animation is the use of text in different fonts and sizes combined with the use of motion in order to convey a message. Kinetic type is more effective than just regularly written content because of the way that you can evoke certain emotions and place emphasis on certain messages using kinetic type.

For example, you could start by displaying a question being typed out on the screen. The answer could then appear all at once and fill up the entire screen for additional emphasis. These types of videos are particularly helpful in relaying statistics to your viewers. They also don’t necessarily require the use of narration or voice overs.

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6. Live Action and Motion Graphic Hybrid Explainer Videos

This type of explainer video is really a hybrid of all types of animation and the use of live action. Businesses like banks and real estate agencies also tend to use them a lot. For example, they’ll show a video of their customers speaking about their service or product, then use motion graphics to detail the steps in which their service helps or how their product can be used.

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Besides the visual component of animated explainer videos, a video production company will be able to help write effective scripts for your videos and help with their visual design as well.

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