5 Reasons Marketers Love Using Animations To Boost Conversion
Written by Toonimo
Here's why marketers love animations... they are so darn effective.
Cartoon animations can be a powerful marketing tool for online marketers. Whether marketers choose an animated character that chimes in to sell office products on television or a ‘Tony the Tiger’ type that actually becomes integral to the brand, animations provide powerful imagery and associations. Fact of the matter is, that animations can help boost your website conversion and engagement. It's important to understand that Animations are appealing and effective. They have broad appeal and when used cleverly, can help build brand awareness, improve brand perception, and boost conversions and sales. In this 3 part blog series, we examine why the cartoon animations are so effective at communicating market messages. To woo your audiences, marketers are flocking to animations because they are: quick to deliver messages, lighten up tough subjects, shareable, disarm the cynics and cost effective.
Why 1 - Quickly Deliver Your Messages
Animations, like many other multimedia tools, replace boring, heavy text with powerful images and emotional audio. It’s obvious -even reading this short summary –audiences are more inclined to engage with multimedia than read. However unlike other multimedia, animations are unique in their ability to quickly distill and impart the essence of a message. Animations convey key messages far quicker than lengthy movies. They enable us to deliver core marketing messages using efficient multimedia, but without the fear of being considered overly blunt - thanks to the friendly, animated mouthpiece. Animations are hyper-succinct. They can distill even the most complicated idea to its essence. Through this abstraction from reality, clever animation artists can communicate the core principles within seconds. To put it simply the animation can make the complex, simple. However great your product or concept may be, it is not always easy for everyone’s grasp its brilliance. To enable less-involved visitors to grasp your message, animations provide a powerful combination of voice, video to visualize your message - abstracting from the details that hinder understanding. No other medium can pack so much or impact an audience in such a short period of time.
Why 2 - Light
We all have grown up watching cartoons from the early age. Whether it was Popeye at 7am on Saturday mornings or Nemo in the movie theatre, audiences of all ages are very much familiar with animations. Our early and formative days as children are filled with animations and cartoons. These animations certainly harken positive, carefree associations from our childhood. In fact, the commercial success of animations continue to compound these light and playful images and associations we have with animations. From early morning cartoons, to later movie trips to see the latest Pixar creations, animations continue to represent fun, youthful aspects of our life. When marketers use animation, they have the ability to side step the heaviness of life, the cumbersome aspects of many decisions, and simply tap their audiences’ more basic, innocent understanding. We see countless examples of how marketers use animations to simplify more complicated subjects. Just ask Tony the Tiger who summed up all the complications of choosing a breakfast cereal for the kids – “They’re Great!”
This light, and simple to grasp medium has made animations the tool of choice for other communicators. Even government agencies use animations to tap this innocence and deliver the most basic messages. Often public service messages are created with the help of cartoon animations to ensure that even the illiterate understand the message (does your utility or bank have an animated character?). We see how public service department rely on cartoons to deliver the safety and health messages quickly to the public, appealing to the most basic, innocence.
Why 3 - Easy to Consume & Shareable
Like other types of video, animations make content interesting. It perks our senses and keep us more engaged in what we are doing. It’s easier to listen to ads than read ads, isn’t it? In the field of multimedia advertising, animations are a powerful medium. Animations enable marketers to achieve the same engagement as other video formats, but with a uniquely straight-forward marketing voice. Through animation, business minded marketers can move from the entertainment industry’s 3rd person entertainment, to a marketers 2nd person advertising. Caped in the clothes of cutesy, engaging animated characters. Animations can simply say and do things that spokespeople cannot. Watch this proof. While few people would sit and watch advertisements (except during the Superbowl), many people will watch (not just sit-through) promotional messages that are delivered by cartoons. Hey! its info-tainment! Animated videos are a fun way to introduce your product or service. A well created animated video with rich multimedia can prove to be far more effective than traditional hard-nosed presentations. Given the choice of sitting through another presentation or watching a cartoon explain a new service, it’s clear who will be speaking to an empty room. With animations, customers are more engaged with your message and more inclined to spend time on your site and with your product. Moreover, like a fun ad, or a goofy YouTube clip, animated marketing messages can be fun enough to share. While we don’t often share white papers or datasheets with friends, exciting, engaging animated movies are indeed ‘shareable’. Surveys show that the 65 percent of online audience share the animated videos to their friends after watching them. So while it’s difficult to hit the holy grail of ‘viral’, it is true that animated videos have a more shareable aspect to them. Even popular internet giants like Google have created animated videos which are interactive in order to keep the viewers engaged in watching their products. In general everyone everywhere is looking for something to watch, repost, re-tweet or share. So if you can be both entertaining and informative, then you may have hit on something that has ever-increasing ROI. Just ask some of the winners!
Why 4 - Disarming - Put your viewers at ease
Ohhh the childhood associations…. The happiness, humor, energy and fun of losing yourself in a cartoon! Now, as adults, we rediscover these animations, reducing the workplace tension. How much more accessible is it to watch an animation than swallow documents crammed with statistics, charts, technical considerations. While animations won’t necessarily replace the critical thinking of a decision maker, they have the impact of lowering their guard. These serve as icebreakers and can warm up audiences with humor. While it’s a simple inroad, sometimes an animation can serve as a friendly media to help marketers.
Why 5 - Cost-effective
Simple animations are one of the most cost effective forms of communication for a marketer.
The costs associated with creating animations are dropping so getting started is relatively barrier-free. Moreover, unlike other spoke models or actors, there are no agency fees or royalties to pay. This combined with the legal arm-wrestling that typically accompanies spokes models, make these forms prohibitive. Just consider the costs of a traditional videos including set design, location shoots and more. These cost considerations combined with animations’ flexibility, make this an appealing tool for markets. Beyond pure economics, animations are flexible enough to be used in a variety of situations. Whether it is an animation for delivering a marketing message or it is a training video or walkthrough, animations tell you the story quickly and in a very clear and simple manner. Animations are able to show abstract concepts and complex designs in a simple and digestible way – from home page welcomes, to navigation directions to onsite support, custom animations can help web visitors understand, engage and act.
