Explainer Animation

An explainer video does what it says on the tin. It takes your subject matter and then explains it to an audience. Typically your subject matter is an idea or concept, a product or service. The audience, or person watching, is someone that would benefit from this. Maybe they don’t fully understand your product because it’s extremely complex, maybe you're in a very competitive industry and there’s lots of choice, or maybe there’s a choice they need to make and therefore need additional information.

With an explainer video you choose exactly what you want to tell them, and decide the order in which they’re told. Studies have shown that the majority of people prefer to learn from a video versus text, and they will retain that information longer.

This depends on the context and purpose of your video. If you’re trying to explain something very detailed and niche to an audience that’s actively interested in it, then you can run a lot longer than you might think. If you’re obsessed with cars, you would probably give more time and attention to an explainer video about car engines versus someone who has no interest. 

We typically advise somewhere around 30-120 seconds depending on your specific objectives. But, we’ve seen great success from videos that run longer than this. There is no hard and fast rule to such a broad question.

We offer pretty much anything that moves without using a camera. Typically, we do a lot of 2D animated explainer videos, as they’re a very good sweet spot between cost and value. We also turn our hands to 3D explainer videos too. These are often used in a variety of ways like product demo explainer videos, exhibition videos, trade show videos, organic marketing, app demos, sales videos, and much more.

In short, it depends. Explainer videos can cost a very different amount depending on a few factors. We need to know how complex the requirements are, how long our production window can be, and what style / quality level you want to go for. An explainer video needed in multiple languages is going to cost more than a single language. A very short production window will mean a bigger team is needed to get the video completed faster. A highly complex style using lots of custom illustrations will be more expensive than simple 2D animated explainer video. 

We will always provide a free, no-obligation proposal with at least 2, often 3 different budgets. This way you can see exactly what you’re going to get, and what the cost associated would be. Drop us a message, or give us a call so we can get a bit more information about what you’re trying to achieve, and likely give a ballpark estimate pretty quickly.

The short answer; there isn’t a set time it takes. Typically it depends on how complex you want your explainer video to be. If you have lots of languages, aspect ratios, and/or durations then it will take longer than a single deliverable. If the project needs to be assessed by compliance for legal or regulatory reasons, then that will take longer. If you have many internal stakeholders that need to approve and sign-off on tasks, then that will also take longer. 2D animated explainer videos will typically take less time to create than their 3D counterparts. 

We typically advise an 8 week turnaround from brief to delivery. This gives everyone enough time between tasks to get approvals without rushing through. However, we often work on shorter timelines when there is an urgent deadline that needs to be met. In some cases, we’ve produced simple projects for regular clients within a week. If you have a deadline that you absolutely need to meet, drop us an email or give us a call and we’ll be able to tell you if we can meet it.

Yes! We strongly recommend using script writers with experience writing for video / animation. Script writing doesn’t add much to a explainer video cost, but it can add tremendous value. We have a brilliant team that can make sure your supplied materials are transformed into stories, narratives and language that will work as voice over or text on screen. We carefully consider line lengths, visuals and tone so that the script can shine when it comes to storyboarding and design. Even in cases where clients come with their own scripts we recommend some level of consultation.

Think of a script as a foundation for your project. If it’s not done correctly, no matter how beautiful the design, how fluid and smooth the animation is, the project will never quite be able to deliver on its objectives. It’s more than words and tone, it’s strategy.

We work across a wide range of industries. We chose to specialise in the service we provide (animation and animated videos) rather than specialise in a single sector or industry. Because of this, we’ve turned our hands to a wide range of projects, explaining everything from corporate explainer videos through to medicine, membranes, payment systems, telecoms, financial services, housing, hospitality, recruitment, financial services, energy and much more. 

There are a few industries that we work in often and see particularly strong results for. We call these our featured sectors. But, there is no single industry that animation works better for than others. If you have something that is complex to explain or hard to film, then animation will work brilliantly for you (we are slightly biased though).

In simple terms, yes, you’re controlling what the audience is seeing. 

With performance marketing - like paid social media - you’re able to put something highly engaging in front of your target audience. Instead of showing an image, or a piece of live-action footage, you can explain exactly what your product or service does, why it’s important to the audience and how it improves their life. 

When used on websites, you’re controlling the narrative of your website. Instead of relying on a visitor to visit certain pages or scrolling down to relevant information, you’re putting it right in front of them. You’re giving them exactly what they need to know, and want to know. 

Several studies have shown that people prefer to learn from videos, and they retain the information better.

With 2D animation, you are creating assets on a piece of paper. These might be images, photographs, illustrations, text, and/or logos. But they sit flat on the paper. When you turn the paper, you see that it is two dimensional - it’s flat. 

With 3D animation, you take an extra step to recreate those assets into a 3D design package. Once you have modelled your assets, you then simulate textures and materials on them to give them their appearance. Then you use light and shadows to create realism. You can use simulations like gravity, wind, fluids, particles to help you explain concepts. In 3D explainer videos you have a lot more tools at your disposal, but it takes more time to create and manipulate.

Yes, we often work in multiple languages and you have two options to consider. As a UK explainer video company, we’re typically asked to create a main version - typically English - that has a voice over and potentially on screen text. Then this main version is subtitled with secondary languages. The second option is to create multiple main versions that have matching on screen text and voice overs. The first option is more cost effective but the second option is much more immersive.

We’ll work with you to define success and look for ways to measure this. Typically explainer videos are used in non-performance marketing ways. This might be as part of sales presentations, at trade shows, or on your website. In these scenarios, typically our clients see a successful video as being delivered on time and budget, being on brand, and having a positive internal response.

You could look to poll customers or external audiences to see if brand awareness or perception improved, or other positive responses. If you’re using an explainer video as part of a performance marketing campaign like paid social media, email, outreach, etc, then it will be much easier to measure the success of the video.

When using explainer videos as part of employee training, you’re much more likely to get and keep their attention. The majority of people prefer to learn from videos, and they go on to retain that information longer than if they’d learnt it from text. If you can explain to an employee why they need to do something, especially in an emotive or story-based way, you’re far more likely to get them bought into doing that thing.

Having your input and feedback is vital for us to create something that is authentic to your business. At each creative stage (moodboard, scriptwriting, storyboarding, etc) we offer 1 round of amends as standard. We’ve found over the years that this is plenty of feedback for the large majority of our clients. However, we want you to be happy with the outcome and will often work with you to get something exactly right. Our process is designed to take small steps that build on the last. In the unlikely scenario of having approved the script, creating the storyboard, and then wanting to change the script in a fundamental way, then we would have to go back and repeat the script task, which would lead to some additional, unforeseen work. We would always have a conversation with you about indicative costs before starting.

We have a brilliant network of voiceover artists and actors that we can recommend based on your project and the requirements. You may be creating something that needs a neutral, international voice. Maybe you need a bit of trust and authenticity that comes from a strong regional accent. We source and manage this for you, as part of our scope of work. We’ll always provide a couple of options so you can pick your favourite voice from a relevant shortlist. Being a UK explainer video company we have the widest network of English voices but we can source international voices.

There’s a few aspects to this. Firstly, you could be positioning yourself in the market by using explainer videos. Not every company has such premium content, and as such, your brand perception could be raised, making customers and prospects prefer you against the competition. Secondly, if we’re creating an explainer video, we’re ensuring that the audience knows why they’re watching it, how it can help them, and why they should choose you. In a very short timeframe (likely 2 minutes or less) they have the answers to these questions and likely the confidence in you and your brand. 

Your customer is likely speaking with others internally on their side, and you’re giving them a simple, easy to understand tool that lives outside of your interactions with them. Getting buy-in from decision makers across departments could be the reason for longer sales cycles, and by making those conversations easier, you’re likely making them quicker.

Instead of telling an abstract story of your product, or your service, you’re putting the audience into the shoes of someone that uses your product or service. Instead of talking about features and benefits, you can show the outcome. Character explainer videos give you the ability to humanise your brand. People will relate with other people - even if they’re animated people rather than live-action. By using characters you’re building connections.

Infographics - static or animated - are simple, clear ways to explain lots of detail, knowledge or data. So an animated infographic explainer video is going to be designed to tell a vast amount of information, typically numbers, statistics, KPIs, to the audience. This differs from other types of animation that might be designed to tell a story to the audience. An animated brand explainer video will be trying to convey the vision, values and ethos of a company. An animated product explainer video will be trying to tell the audience why this product, how it helps them, and why this company. An animated infographic animation will likely be explaining facts and figures about a particular topic.

Absolutely. We generally create corporate explainer video for things that are hard to film, or things that are very complex and need to be explained visually with animation. We will work alongside you to help translate your product or service into a compelling script that guides the audience through all the important information. With complex products or services we highly recommend a voiceover so the visuals on screen can be reinforcing or breaking down what’s being voiced to the audience.

We’ll work with your tech team to understand any specific requirements. Typically explainer videos are hosted on a third party site like Vimeo or YouTube. This gives you the added benefit of organically ranking on their own search engines. These sites then ‘stream’ the video into your website meaning the video isn’t loaded until you click play, which means there is very little loading on your website. Typically companies embed videos on website home pages, about pages, specific product or service pages as well as landing pages. 

If you’re looking to embed into an app, you can use new technologies like AR (augmented reality) to help enhance your product demo explainer videos.

We’ll work with you to identify the relevant marketing channels as part of our briefing process. We often produce a single main video which is then used to create shorter videos for use on other channels like email marketing or social media. Algorithms reward video content very highly, so you’ll often see a boost in marketing results from using video on different channels, particularly your website and social media.