Internal Communications Animation

These are videos you’re using to communicate with an internal audience. You might be informing, educating, persuading, inspiring but as opposed to external communications, you’re probably not selling. A common use for internal communications videos is updating teams on progress, celebrating end of year achievements, introducing new products, platforms or processes. We also commonly capture updates from key stakeholders that are then shared with a wider audience. It’s likely the videos are shared on internal social media channels like Workplace or Microsoft Viva Engage.

Much in the same way that animated videos can improve any form of communication. People can’t read things anymore - the workplace environment is too distracting, there’s too many things to do, and likely suffering from email/teams overwhelm.

Animated videos offer an opportunity to catch and hold people’s attention. They’re something a bit different when browsing internal comms channels, or part of a bigger showcase that will excite people. Animated videos are also excellent for explaining, teaching, educating and training due to the way our brains store and prioritise information we get in video form. You also get to tell a story - bring people on a journey, explain your why, help put them in your shoes. Likely you’ll get better engagement, satisfaction and recall when using animated internal communications videos.

We specialise in animated internal communications videos. These could be screen recordings or screencasts. They could be explainer videos to highlight and educate on new products, services or processes. Or, they could be videos for training and learning purposes as part of an LMS or continual learning initiative. Annual end of year videos are commonplace to share with teams the achievements of the goal and the goals of next year. Also, you could use tutorials on how to use a specific tool so anyone can watch on-demand and follow along. They could be videos used in onboarding new talent. Or films to update and motivate the workforce behind new vision, mission, values (or reinforcing current ones).

Animated video is a very powerful tool for internal communications, and there’s a number of advantages.

It very much depends on the project and the objectives. Recording a speaker and adding some light motion graphics for key information or statistics will be a much quicker process than creating a complex explainer animation with bespoke illustrations. Typically, we say 8 weeks is a sweet spot for producing animated videos. It gives enough time to present work, capture feedback from stakeholders and update with amendments without rushing through the process. We’ve built a reputation on high quality, fast delivery of internal communications, so if you have something specific in mind, don’t hesitate to reach out for an estimate on production times.

This is one of our most requested features for internal communications videos. Typically the audience is diverse and global, and whilst English is commonly spoken, it’s not the first language of the majority of the audience. There’s three ways to tackle an animated video for multiple languages. We could simply add subtitles to the bottom. We could limit use of text within the animation, relying on a voiceover that can be re-voiced in multiple languages. Or we can purely use text on screen with motion graphics and use proprietary software to pull in from different language variants where needed. Using subtitles is the quickest and most cost effective route. Translating the animation whether using multiple voices or text within the animation is far more immersive, but adds to the complexity and therefore the cost.

Employee engagement videos, especially animated videos, are a powerful tool in your internal communication strategy. In a video, you can use storytelling to help bring people together, or take them on a journey with you. Humans naturally connect and resonate with stories to a far greater extent than we would through standing information delivery mechanisms. By making employees feel connected and aligned with the company, their sense of belonging and purpose within the organisation will improve. This in turn increases their sense of engagement. Videos can also provide a feeling of a two-way conversation between the company and the audience. Filming stakeholders, showing company footage, animating characters all boost the involvement and immersion of the audience versus traditional static graphics, images or documents.

Animated videos capture and hold attention far greater than their text counterparts. Scientific studies have shown that video is the preferred medium for learning and educational materials. Studies have also been conducted and proven that information is remembered and retained far longer from video than text. Due to the stimulation of two senses (sight and sound) the brain processes and stores video information differently than information from a single sense (reading text). Animated videos also have the ability to use sound design and effects to build and connect with the audience, as well as far greater abilities of visual communication. For global teams, using visual imagery to communicate rather than text-based language has obvious benefits like the avoidance of language barriers or translations.

Measuring success is always a case-by-case basis and highly dependent on your internal video strategy. If you’re delivering through an internal platform, you could look at video views, completion percentages of the video, a call to action (and if that action has been followed through). If you’re delivering as part of town halls or in-person events, maybe you could ask for employee feedback in a short survey. If you’re training employees, you could consider using quizzes or interaction elements to test on subject matter for recall and memory. In short, success varies from project to project, but we’re always on hand to help suggest how you could track success from your project.

In most cases we don’t have access to your intranet, internal social media or LMS systems for data security. We always deliver web-friendly MP4’s that are optimised for online viewing. If we’re creating for specific LMS platforms, we’ll always ensure that the videos are formatted correctly and take advantage of interactivity where possible.

Confidentiality is key to our clients, which is why you won’t see many examples of internal communications videos on our website. We’re happy to sign NDAs to keep sensitive information behind closed doors, and hold all your production team under similar confidentiality clauses. Our team has worked together for years, so we only work with people that we trust. We use technology and software with strong data protection, and project based privileges, so only your team can access your project. Distribution and communications happen via secure channels like Teams to comply with IT best practices. We use password protection to secure the sharing of any information or data. Once a project is completed, we remove it from the cloud and keep a back-up offline in case of future amends. We can also put in place clear protocols for destroying any confidential information once your project is completed. Finally, the best policy is to only share information that is completely necessary for our scope of work, and re-visit supplied materials after writing the script so we have the very minimum amount of sensitive information needed to fulfil the brief.

We often work with companies and organisations with a strong sense of brand, and therefore work closely with supplied brand guidelines to ensure we’re not diluting the brand. We look for ways to work within the constraints and boundaries of what we can do, whilst pushing the envelope as much as possible to ensure the project feels visually exciting for the audience. We work with brand elements like colours, logos, shapes, graphic elements and characters to create branded videos that feel authentic to who you are. Our team can work to develop or explore new avenues within your brand like custom characters, and develop existing elements to make them more suitable for animation. If you don’t have brand guidelines or a visual identity, it’s not a problem. We often create animations and animated videos for startups that need help getting their visual identity up and running.

There is no single ideal length for an internal communications video. It completely depends on the context, the use and the audience. Showcasing the company's new vision for the next 5 years will have a very different length to delivering training materials for a very complex process or product. Internal comms videos can run a lot longer than regular videos due to the nature of the audience. 

If you’re creating micro-learning, try to keep it to a couple of minutes or less. Else you’ll lose your audience over time. A regular update or explainer, think 3-5 minutes. Something highly complex and niche, you may want to give more time, anywhere for 5-15 minutes. Then you may want to produce a pre-recorded seminar, webinar or long form training, which can run up to an hour. We’ve created CPD webinars with a mix of footage, presentations and voice overs that ran for 45 minutes. But that won’t be right for everyone.

There isn’t a set rule for how often internal communication videos should be updated. We’d recommend reviewing or auditing every 12 months to ensure information, people or places don’t go out of date without you knowing. Try to establish the difference between evergreen videos and videos that are more time sensitive. Your company vision or brand film may need to be addressed every few years, whereas monthly campaigns or progress reports will need to be updated far more frequently. It should go without saying that you’ll need to update videos if policies, processes or regulations change. The advantage of using animated videos is that everything is easy to update, both in terms of speed and cost. No expensive reshoots needed.

It is possible to have interactive elements in internal communications videos, but typically we’re not the ones to do this. Due to information security, data protection and naturally cautious IT departments, we’re usually not granted access to the systems where you would add interactive elements. Creating clickable hotspots, branching scenarios, embedded quizzes or surveys, and custom navigation is all possible through the use of software like Learning Management Systems, but typically this is done internally.

Very much in the same way that an animated explainer video would simplify any process. Regardless of whether it’s internal or external, we’re experts in creating explainer videos. Most importantly, we’re not stuck filming reality, we can create the impossible and capture the abstract. We can represent processes using analogies, visual metaphors or branded elements. We can break down complex subjects into smaller, simpler ones. And we can visualise complicated information like statistics, charts, graphs, into beautiful infographics. All of these can be done with movement to further highlight and guide the viewer, as well as using sound like music, effects and voiceover to support and further educate.

Onboarding videos are designed for new employees and mainly focus on getting new starters up to speed. They’d be educated on the company’s vision, mission and values, as well as culture, and any important processes that will help them succeed at the start of their role. Think of them as a very broad overview.

Employee training videos are for existing employees and would address specific updates, advanced topics relating to their role, department or skill set. They’re usually very focused, going into deep dives, serving as reference points for their job or part of continuous learning.

Videos, especially executive messages, can benefit communications by giving consistency. No matter which timezone or location an employee is, they get the same information. We all know how important tone and body language are to communications. We only have to look at text messaging versus calling someone to see the many different ways that language can be misinterpreted. Executive videos also help in humanising leadership. The more people see someone's face and hear their voice, the more they feel like they know them. Executive message videos build rapport, morale and relatability across globalised teams.

When there are large amounts of change, there are large amounts of communication needed around change. Internal communications videos help to break down complex new information or processes into simpler, easy to understand chunks. Recurring themes, consistent branding and thoughtful strategy help shape new cultures and alignments, creating unified change narratives. We can also use colour psychology, narrative arcs and characters to help evoke specific emotions and feelings within the workforce. We can use these strategies to increase positive sentiment, boost morale and inspire change towards new goals and company objectives.

The benefit to using a series of videos is you can play out messages over a longer period of time. Characters can have change and development, narratives can be arced and storytelling can be more nuanced and detailed. With each video building on the last, key messages are reinforced and gradually culture can be shaped and defined. Video series also enable you to wrap micro-learnings or small stories into other pieces of content. You’re educating on a small lesson, reinforcing company culture, and reminding of upcoming events, training or other key events in the calendar. A huge advantage of creating a video series is that you can respond to the audience and how they’re using your video content. We can study metrics like watch rates and completion rates as well as reactions to different types of videos or content. Then, we optimise future episodes and videos based on this information.

Company culture videos give you a brilliant opportunity to show your audience, not just tell them. By seeing the company values, mission and culture brought to life, in action, employees can further understand and align with them. Practical examples take this to the next level. You could talk about a specific value of the company, then show that value being applied in different experiences across different teams. Now employees haven’t just heard the value, they’ve seen it implemented in various different ways. By using characters and situations, employees are more likely to become inspired or emotionally invested, helping them to resonate with the company. Also, a huge advantage for using videos is that they are remembered by the brain differently to text-based counterparts, so values become easier to remember and therefore apply.