Whiteboard animation is an amazing tool! It can explain everything from a change in law to the latest scientific theories about black holes. If this wasn’t enough, we conducted research with Professor Richard Wiseman that found that whiteboard animations result in a 15% information retention increase while also making viewers 66% more likely to share when compared with standard talking head videos.
Increasingly the research is showing that the most effective communications:
are made up of great creative content that cuts through the noise and stays with people
are strongly linked to your brand
Whiteboard animations are great at linking into branding and next levelling marketing campaigns! But before you type in ‘free whiteboard animation software’ straight into google, there are some very good reasons why working with a professional studio team creates a much stronger, more engaging and memorable explainer animation than the generic cut and paste software equivalent.
Message and Brand
Author Daniel Pink appears in his own animation, advertising his book ‘When’.
Whiteboard animations and scribe videos are tremendous assets, so it’s important they convey your message effectively and sit within your brand. The tools provided by whiteboard animation apps will take you so far, but if your serious about this you need to take a different approach. Working with a whiteboard animation studio allows you to brief a team about what your brand is all about and what it is you’re saying. Armed with this knowledge the team can then create custom illustrations, brand placements and other signifiers which tie this animation firmly into your brand and broader marketing plans. The benefit of working with a creative team is that these details can be made completely bespoke - right down to the inclusion of characters based on staff or recognizable icons, and all in within your brand guidelines. Find more about branding in whiteboard animations here.
The Creative Process
Whiteboard animations, such as this one for Quantum Discoveries, start out as blueline drawings while ideas are discussed and finalised.
Whether it’s shoes or the stock exchange, to do something well takes the correct the preparation. This is another area where a creative team comes into their own. When you work with a creative team, you get more than a basic tutorial built into the whiteboard animation software. You get the full experience of the team, which is built on their studies and the lessons learned from a career creating powerful and effective explainer animations. This can show itself in a number of ways. Firstly, the team are the perfect sounding board for your own ideas or questions. Drawing on their experience within your industry or subject, they can also share knowledge and tips. Perhaps the greatest part of working with a creative team is that there are no templates. If you or the team can imagine it, it can be created - making your animation memorable and unique
Illustration and Visual Thinking
For EuroQol, we turned their dimensions of health in a fitting room mirror.
Visual thinking is one of the things which makes whiteboard animations so great. Working with illustrators, you can create any image or visual you can imagine. You are freed from the templates and stock images of software and apps. Great visual thinking has two stages, the first is the ideas generation stage. Illustrations can be as literal, lateral or metaphorical as you want and your creative team will think about the perfect combination of these to explain your message - always checking back in for feedback and final approval. The second stage is turning these ideas into attention grabbing and communicative drawings. Illustrators have the full tool kit to bring these ideas to life, infusing your animation with the bespoke qualities that define you and your message. This blog post provides a deeper look at visual thinking.
We reflected the wide range of people who use forests for #forestproud.
Relevance and Relatability
Relevance and relatability are essential for any communication, and whiteboard animation is the perfect medium to harness these. If you’re working within whiteboard animation software or an app you will be limited in how much you can do this. These limits won’t apply when working with an animation studio. You know your audience - who they are, where they are, what they don’t like and most importantly what they’ll relate to. An animation studio is able to take all these insights and build them into the very fabric of the animation. From the settings and character design to cultural references and tiny details your audience will love.
In telling Issoria’s story, we used the metaphor of launching a satellite to embody the stages of development they offer their clients.
Great Scripts and Visual Narratives
A strong script is an integral part of any well-produced and effective scribe videos, and whiteboard animation studios are set up to write these. At an early stage, script writers will take the information you have given and begin working it up into a script which pitches your message in the ideal way for your audience. Once you approve it, this script is then an important part of the visual process. Visual storytelling makes up some of the very first storytelling we experience, as our Managing Senior Creative Dan Stirrup explains, and we’ve used it to connect with each other since the dawn of our history. Using narratives and storytelling is an incredibly effective way of making your message engaging and memorable. Storytelling can be seen in the emotion added to characters and settings and in the way visual metaphors and scenes progress to give your message a lasting impact.
This animation for the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families highlights the interplay between visuals, voiceover and script.
Professional Voiceovers
There is more to whiteboard animations than the visuals. A professional voiceover adds a new dimension to your animation. It can be hard to record at home to a professional standard but whiteboard animation studios often have links with recording studios and a range of voiceover artists. Through these links you can choose the voice that encapsulates your message and brand perfectly, while also appealing directly to your target demographic. Combined with the script, illustration and animation - a strong voiceover is the final ingredient in creating whiteboard animations that work well for viewers with visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning preferences.
Our animation for WeTransfer used charm at every stage to emphasize the person centred nature of their message.
Adding Humour and Charm
Nothing connects quite humour and charm. The power of laughter and feeling a little warm and fuzzy inside cannot be under-estimated. It might be a well-timed reference popular with your audience or the charming way a character is drawn - both stay with audiences, also adding an extra layer of relatability and connection. If your subject is complex or dry, humour and charm are also great ways of opening it up and making it more accessible. The creative team at a whiteboard animation studio can create bespoke imagery aimed just for the audiences you have in mind. These are the little details, the quality touches that show people the standard of your work and how much you understand them.
Whiteboard animations should be tailored and bespoke, like a good suit. Like a good suit, the quality shows in every aspect. This tailored approach allows your whiteboard animation to be fitted perfectly to you, your brand, your campaign and perhaps most importantly - your audience. Off-the-shelf templates and stock image-based whiteboard animation software and apps will never give you the creative scope to communicate your brand and vision to the level it deserves.
We are passionate about whiteboard animation, and love using it to supercharge people’s stories. Our connection with the medium goes back to its beginning, when we invented it in the process of creating the RSA Animates series. We’d love to supercharge your story and give your message the exposure it needs.
Cognitive are award-winning pioneers of whiteboard animation, and the creators behind the RSA Animates series. We help corporate, academic and charitable organisations like the BBC, TED, Coca Cola and Sanofi to tell their stories more powerfully. Find out more about us here.
If you could pin down the essence of truth, could you draw it? That’s the question that lingered in my mind after speaking with Dan Ariely for my RSA Animate documentary—a project allowing me to reconnect with some of the most compelling thinkers of our time.