What Is An Animated Explainer Video?

From small businesses right the way up to well-known brands, marketers worldwide are using explainer videos to communicate their stories in an effective way. It's proving to be a very powerful form of communication that audiences love.

But why is this I hear you say? Well, to answer this question it's worth pondering what is an explainer video? And what makes them so special?

As one of the UK's leading animated explainer video companies, the team at Skeleton are well equipped to answer these questions.

Key features of an explainer video

Educational story line

A key identifying feature of an explainer video is an educational story line. One that teaches the audience about a new product, idea, or process.

Simple straightforward language

When it comes to explainers, you want to make sure they can be understood completely by your target audience. The explanation itself needs to be as simple as possible in a lot of cases. By using animation, you have an additional way of expressing your ideas and helping to break down more complex messages.

This explainer for Western Power demonstrates this excellently - the video is intended for younger audiences and families, so the information is simplified down in order to be understood by this market.

Length

With the attention spans of people continuing to fall, it's critical that your storytelling is not over complicated, and gets to the point. That's why explainer videos are usually pretty short in duration. It's not unusual for them to be 90 seconds for example.

Tailored to a specific audience

When you decide to commission an explainer video, you should make sure it is tailored specifically to your audience, ensuring you help solve their problems and answer their questions. Knowing exactly who to target means your explainers are more likely to have a positive impact on not only your customers but also your business. Explainers should be as much about your audience as they are about your brand.

Brand colours

Using your brand's colours in your explainer is key to connecting the video with your brand. This also goes for logos and fonts! These are the things your audience use to identify you on a daily basis, and it will help build the connection between your brand, and the information being shared. Explainer video companies are excellent at incorporating your brand in an effective way.

Music

Music is great for setting the mood and increasing overall engagement. Music is an easy element of video production to forget about, but you'll certainly notice when it isn't there. In regards to setting the mood, music can enhance the seriousness of the problem you are presenting to the audience and emphasises how good the solution is. If you are planning to get an explainer video, you should definitely consider the type of tone you would like your video to have.

Voice-over

The voice-over is one of the most important parts of an explainer. A professional voice over guides the audience through the video and gives more information to what is being shown on screen. This is especially helpful if you want to communicate a complicated message - using animation and voice-over together will ensure your ideas get through in a more effective way.

Summary

So, what is an explainer video production? It's an effective way to communicate with your target audience in a short and simple way. It helps to solve the problems of your audience by offering an ideal solution. This solution is then connected to your brand through the use of brand colours, fonts and assets throughout the video. Music and voice-overs help engage the audience with your explainer, as well as setting the tone of the video.

At Skeleton, we've seen how effective animated explainers are, with the ones we've made for our clients. If you're not sure where to start with your explainer video, give us a call. We'll be sure to put you in the right direction.