Storytelling is as old as our records of human culture. Effective storytelling is engaging and taken to the next level with video animation, which further inspires imagination. The medium of 2D animation especially invokes a sense of whimsy and nostalgia from childhood and appeals to all ages. This makes it especially useful in business communication formats.
2D Animation for Business
2D videos leverage animation techniques that use digitally hand-drawn illustrations that are then animated into cartoon or comic-style graphics. Typically, traditional animation in 2D animated videos has a story with a beginning, middle, and end. In these cases, there is a “hero”, a challenge the hero faces, and a happily ever after, all with an easy-to-follow theme and tone. It’s important to leverage character animation to give your story humanity and make it relatable.
A video production and animation company can create video content for a wide range of communication and marketing campaigns that enhance the way users interact with your business.
Whether you are sharing on social media or distributing through internal channels in your business, video animation is a great way to optimize your message.
Here are some of the most popular reasons to hire a 2D explainer video company.
Innovative Uses for 2D Animation Explainer Videos
Besides outward-facing animation videos for marketing and promotional purposes, companies are using 2D animation software to enhance internal communications.
Here are some categories that are perfect topics for innovative animation videos that employees can access:
- Employee Onboarding
- Company Mission
- Company Culture
- Training Programs
- Messages from the CEO
- Employee Recognition
- Policy Changes
- Product Rollouts
- Incentive Programs
- Company Reorganization
- Change Management
- Work Safety
- Charitable and Community Service Initiatives
- Corporate Governance
Employee Onboarding
A long-term value of using animation videos for new employee onboarding is that they remain “evergreen.” These onboarding videos can be used for a very long time until some key factor, covered in an animated video, changes. Examples are instructions about filling out the necessary forms, explaining the employee benefits, and how-to setup guides for remote workers.
Company Mission
Every company needs a powerful mission statement. Mission statements require both organizational support and individual enthusiasm for the business to live up to its goal. A 2D animated video can support critical messaging in a distinct way that is memorable and inspiring.
Training Programs
Creating compelling content for training purposes is no easy task. When you are looking for tools to help increase your user engagement, video offers an excellent solution.
One advantage of using animated characters in training videos is that they remain relevant and won’t look outdated for years to come. Compared to using human actors, animated character designs have many advantages. The characters can represent qualities the organization wants to embrace and animation offers a cost-effective option to live-action productions. It’s also easy to create a broad and diverse set of characters, to foster inclusiveness in your communications.
Messages from the CEO
Which would you rather get? A long-winded email from the CEO or a link to an animated video that dynamically conveys the CEO’s message? Generally, people prefer animation over talking head videos. This method works well for camera-shy executives, too!
Employee Recognition
An animated avatar that resembles an employee is an excellent tool for employee recognition. Internally promoting an individual’s success story is a great incentive for other team members and helps your team feel recognized and appreciated.
Policy Changes
Written policy manuals have one big problem. Often, people who need to know the information do not read them. Animation can be used to disseminate information about major policy changes in an interesting, watchable way.
Product Demos
Using video to highlight the intricacies of a product or service helps streamline messaging while generating awareness around the product. These videos can be used internally to educate employees on critical details or used externally to generate interest and brand awareness.
Incentive Programs
Incentive programs are a great way to boost team morale. Unfortunately, these programs are not always widely known. 2D animation is terrific at explaining incentive programs in an exciting manner.
Company Reorganization
Animation does not have to be limited to character-based storylines. Animation can demonstrate complex reorganizations by demonstrating planned changes through unique graphic elements.
Change Management
When depicting complex matters of organizational change, video animation is a great way to make things more clear and simpler to understand. By animating out what is changing, and how it impacts the broader set of stakeholders, more people will understand and take necessary action.
Work Safety
Work safety is incredibly important, especially in light of the pandemic. New safety methods need to be taught to employees and the proper ways to use them. Animation does an excellent job of covering complex topics like teaching employees how to be safer while working.
Charitable and Community Service Initiatives
Many companies have charitable efforts that they support, such as match-funding donations made by employees. These initiatives can be explained, and community service initiatives are easily promoted with animated videos.
Corporate Governance
Animation helps explain important complex corporate governance issues such as conflicts of interest, ethics violations, sexual harassment in the workplace, accountability, oversight, and transparency. While these topics can be difficult to address, custom videos allow you to direct the narrative related to critical issues that many organizations face.
Get Started with 2D Animation Experts
These are just a few examples of how 2D animation can be used as part of an effective communication strategy both externally and internally. These creative ideas are fun, effective, engaging, and have the potential to leave a powerful impact.
You can view samples of our work on our YouTube channel and familiarize yourself with some of our other animation styles. To learn more about how we can help with a project for your organization, contact our animation experts today.
