How brands can benefit from using animation in advertising

There are many benefits to advertising with animation:  

• Cost Effective: You can save on costs over live-action footage because you don’t need actors, sets, or expensive camera equipment.
• Flexibility: Animation allows for more creativity and flexibility with shot choice, scripts and content, meaning complex issues and narratives can be communicated more effectively.
  
• Brand Identity: Brand elements like graphics and illustrations can be integrated to create a cohesive campaign. Likewise, the resulting animations can be used across other assets or mixed in with live-action footage.
  
• Adaptability: Animated visuals can easily be readjusted, meaning compositions originally made for TVC’s can be adapted for social ads, digital out-of-home displays and banner ad formats to get that perfect fit on every device.
• Emotional Appeal: Animation can be used to evoke emotions in the audience, such as humour, nostalgia or empathy. Animation can leave a lasting impression on viewers because it often employs distinctive styles and storytelling elements to help increase brand awareness and recall over time.

Here at Folio Lab, we’re experts in animating illustrations across a whole range of styles. Having a broad range of illustrators to choose from means you can select the perfect style for your ad script. 

Want a luxury style to elevate your products? Sophisticated imagery from fashion-focused illustrators would lift your brand for a new market. 

Perhaps your product requires a more targeted ad – many of our illustrators have styles that, for example, translate perfectly from children’s books and appeal to a younger audience. 

Want to connect with your community through the human touch? Choose from a selection of hand-drawn styles that offer a reassuring sense of authenticity. 

We can even combine styles for an incredible mix of illustrated storytelling and CGI product reveals.

Connecting a wider audience

Animation has the ability to connect with a very wide audience. From storytelling to the visual aesthetic, animation resonates with people from all backgrounds and engages everyone from toddlers to pensioners. 

Many of us fall in love with animation from a very young age, whether that’s through a favourite cartoon character or an immersive computer game environment. It’s not just the dynamic visuals or bright colours that draw us in, it’s the combination of movement, emotion and pacing that makes animation such an effective storytelling tool. You can include extreme poses to highlight amazing product features that wouldn’t be seen in the real world, or show the full impact your service can make to a character’s journey. 

Animation connects with people.

Where can animation advertising be seen?

Animation is all around us. It’s commissioned for a wide variety of projects and is applicable to almost every industry. 

At Folio Lab we have experience in producing assets for a range of formats. These are some of the most common formats for commercial animation:

TVC – TV Commercials (Traditional Commercial Breaks)

One of the most popular places to find animation is in TV commercials. These specialised animations promote products in a short frame of time (usually 15–20 seconds of airtime), so they have to be memorable and make an impact. They might be paired with a jingle for brand recognition, or focus on a strong story to keep viewers hooked. 

Alongside TV commercials, you may even spot animated ‘idents’ for the TV channel itself. Idents are created as a way to create a strong sense of branding by reminding viewers of the channel they are watching. Idents help to set an atmosphere for the channel or time of day: children’s idents are aired at the end of the school day while more adult humorous idents are aired after 9pm. MTV was famous for its idents throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and they helped solidify the MTV brand as youthful, edgy and creative.

VOD – Video on Demand (Streaming Platforms)

The rise of Video on Demand streaming platforms has resulted in a plethora of VOD animations, which are often seen as banners across the screen to capture a viewers’ attention and direct them to a particular show that may be premiering on the platform. 

Alternatively, in-house or third-party advertisements on VOD platforms create another opportunity for animation to pique the interest of the targeted demographic (the people watching the show). These animation slots can vary from 30 seconds to 2 minutes depending on the campaign, with the longer times possible because VOD platforms show fewer adverts in general than regular television. 

VOD advertising can also include in-flight animation, usually found in the ads before a movie starts. These animations are a great opportunity to make an impression on an already engaged audience.

DOOH – Digital Out of Home

Digital out of home advertising refers to a wide variety of different formats, such as digital billboards, kiosks and posters. The term also applies to transit advertising, where ads can be placed on anything that moves, from taxis and buses to trams and subway trains. 

Generally considered as an ‘on-the-go’ advertising technique, these animations are short and snappy, often with a direct message from brand to consumer. They tend to be shorter than 15 seconds and may be animated in a looping format to keep the animation from becoming too invasive. Their message is often concise but can still have room for conceptual interpretations. 

DOOH adverts may often be part of a broader campaign, with an entire selection of animations that are sized and used across various spots in a city, creating a sense of familiarity in the audience.

Social Ads – Across Social Media

Social media advertising has increased dramatically in tandem with people’s use of technology platforms to keep in contact. Social ads can be an effective way to introduce familiarity with a new product while targeting a specific customer demographic. 

Animation advertising can be found on social media platforms as a means to engage the audience with an exciting moving prospect as a short break from their regular scrolling. These animations are typically designed to be eye-catching, in order to capture the viewer and snag their attention while scrolling through their feed.

Display Ads – Across the Web

Display advertising can still be found on a majority of websites and was one of the first forms of internet advertising. These animations are often short and designed to build up a sense of familiarity with the audience, so they are usually created as a series to be shown over a period of weeks. 

These adverts usually contain animated characters or specific colours that the audience comes to recognise as being affiliated with the brand. These animations are not as heavy in narrative as some other advertising animations, so being instantly recognisable and eye-catching is imperative for a display ad.