Are you prepared to start a marketing journey that captivates your audience and has a lasting impact? The captivating world of animated narrative is the only place to look. Storytelling animation has become a potent tool for marketers looking to create memorable experiences due to its magical combination of attractive graphics, gripping narratives, and emotional connection.
Come learn the four paradigm-shifting reasons why animated storytelling is missing in your marketing approach. Get ready for a journey to capture people’s attention, spark their imaginations, and take your brand to new levels.
What Does Storytelling Mean?
To begin, let’s define a few terms. What exactly is storytelling? It’s a casual approach to letting others know about your journey and experiences. It’s an easily understood and memorable story that outlines the company’s objectives, values, and aspirations. Making it passionate and catchy is the major goal to attract everyone’s attention and create a solid relationship with the brand.
What Is Animated Storytelling?
Storytelling has advanced due to new technology, stepping into the digital sphere. Additionally, they have allowed sharing of stories using various visual mediums, like animations. Consequently, animated storytelling refers to the production of content for various uses. For instance, it is now an important component of numerous marketing plans.
4 Reasons To Use Storytelling Animation In Marketing
Marketing professionals choose animation videos because they are brief yet intricate. Additional factors may still be included, but these are the most important.
1. Stand Out From The Competitor Crowd Through Animation
Your company’s objective is to outperform its rival and win the trust of its clients. You may accomplish that objective by including animated storytelling in your marketing video initiatives. This animated story experience helps in conveying your brand messages. It establishes your reputation among your audience as a conscientious and trustworthy business.
When producing an animation, designers choose their unique ways. As a result, you must ensure that the originality requirement is upheld when creating an animated video for the company.
Making material real and distinctive increases the worth of your company considerably because intelligent audiences and customers instantly recognize originality and individuality. You can seek advice and use conventional marketing techniques.
But if you can, improvise a little and develop a marketing plan that includes an interesting animated film that tells your brand’s story in a way similar to a fairy tale. Story animated video is an engaging and subtle way to promote your products or services.
2. Animations Develop A Bond With The Brand
The potential to create a strong connection with a brand that provided this content is the untapped potential of creative marketing animation storytelling. One of the main advantages of a story animated video for business is this. But there’s a hack that’s even more amazing.
With the use of compelling visual storytelling animation, you may highlight the customer’s current associations and foster the formation of brand-new ones. In a nutshell, animation enables business owners to alter how customers perceive their brand.
Business owners could experience critical moments when their brand receives unfavorable customer feedback or if their brand image is harmed by unfair competitive manipulation.
Even though the business offers the finest services, these instances may continue to haunt customers. A cartoon video can create positive associations and strengthen brand perceptions, which can assist in resolving such situations.
3. Story Animated Videos Touch Target Audiences’ Sentiments
A captivating story and beautiful animation can increase viewer sympathy. Since animation storytelling typically attempts to exaggerate feelings to make them evident in the film, it is an effective technique to convey emotions.
Creating an interesting animated video gives your viewers something extra: an emotional benefit. We frequently let our emotions guide our purchasing decisions. It is simply a fact, neither good nor bad.
Forward-thinking business owners and marketing executives should consider visual storytelling animation when developing a product strategy. By incorporating emotions into your marketing, you increase your chances of converting more purchases.
You can improve conversion rates by using an animated video in the advertising. One of the best platforms for “emotional” marketing is this one. It enables you to add joy and happiness to the consumer experience.
4. Animation Boosts Conversion Rate
Visitors are 100% more likely to stay on a website longer with video content than when it doesn’t. Furthermore, 64% of viewers are more likely to execute an action after seeing a video, whether filling out a contact form or purchasing.
The viewer is more likely to view the complete video of an animated explanation of your product or service’s advantages than they would be reading the same content on your web page.
Consequently, your message may be delivered engagingly while the user understands more about your company. A fantastic strategy to encourage them to take more steps is to include a call to action after the video.
How To Make A Story Animation?
Some components can advance your storytelling and help it succeed. These components may carry varying amounts of importance in different projects. However, they are necessary for practically every successful 3D animation tale.
Step 1: The Core Idea
Your 3D animation should have a core message to convey, such as a main idea, topic, significance, lesson, truth, or viewpoint. It stands for the emotional foundation upon which everything else rests; it is the belief that will fuel your story.
Every element of the story—characters, settings, even the plot—confirms that notion rather than challenges it. It’s preferable to keep your main point concise.
Step 2: Well-Developed Characters
Characters are the centre of a story; without a strong hero or opponent, your narrative will fall flat. The goal of character development for animation is to give each character the appearance of having a deep personality.
Give each character a distinct viewpoint and voice, then push them to choose. Your audience will be more engaged with your story because of these complications. Make sure to build a “character profile” for each of your characters and include the following details to fully develop them:
- Name
- Description
- Desires
- Habits
- Traits
- Personal Details
- Goals & ambitions
Your 3D animation’s primary character must be captivating enough to keep viewers’ interest throughout the plot. The audience, in contrast, has to be able to feel connected with them in some way. Even if your characters have just one relatable quality, the viewers will be able to relate to them.
Other character archetypes may also be used to aid the development of the lead character. These supporting characters will interact with the main character and have their plotlines. Though each character “must” serve a role in your plot, you shouldn’t overcrowd it with them.
You should think again if they don’t add much or anything to the narrative. You can use character archetypes to construct your plot by:
- The sidekick: a supportive figure whom the main character can look up to or learn from.
- The villain: the one attempting to harm or stop the hero.
- The shape-shifter: a character who is not what he first appears to be
- The challenger: a challenge the hero must face, whether an enemy, an event, or both.
- The trickster: the one who strives to deceive or outwit the hero
Character design and storytelling animation in 3D can also take advantage of the visual aspects of the 3D medium, which is a chance that shouldn’t be passed up at all.
Step 3: A Well-Described World
An essential component of a 3D animation is the real or imagined universe in which the tale is set. No other approach to writing a compelling novel is to completely describe your world and understand its rules. The rest of your 3D animation process will go more smoothly if your world is adequately defined now.
The fact that 3D animation ignores the laws of reality is a clear distinction in 3D animated storytelling. The only restriction on their creativity is their complete command over the 3D environment, allowing animation studios or individuals who create 3D animation to choose which laws should be followed and which shouldn’t.
Consider a captivating location that enhances your narrative to the maximum extent and has the greatest possible influence on your story because 3D animation technology practically removes any limitations from your visual production. Consider how the environment might affect your characters’ interactions.
Step 4: An Engaging Conflict
The main character’s objective can be whatever he desires, and he is prepared to go through hardships, such as a priceless object to obtain, a significant event to attend, or a success to achieve. A dull storytelling animation would result from the main character’s pursuit of their objective, not causing at least one conflict in the narrative.
Conflict drives a good story about a character who wants something and fights against all odds to get it. Your story will be more engaging for the audience if they can identify with the dilemma and the main character’s attempts to resolve it.
Giving information about people, their emotions, and places is insufficient; conflicts create drama and make the story compelling. The following conflict kinds are the fundamental ones; make sure that one of them serves as the primary conflict in your story.
- Man against man (external): Characters oppose one another in this conflict. The struggle may be directly over one or more characters’ wishes or more subtle.
- Man against nature (external): In this fight, the main character battles an animal or a natural disaster like a hurricane, tornado, or snow.
- Man against himself (internal): The most difficult to bring to life is a conflict in which the character has to conquer their nature or choose between two or more options, such as right and wrong, reason and emotion, etc.
Step 5: A Logical Storyline
This one may seem simple, but it is a narrative staple. The term “storyline” describes the order of events in a narrative where each occurrence impacts the subsequent events according to the cause-and-effect model. Because of this, almost all stories have a similar framework.
A logical flow of your story animated video must include the following:
- a beginning
- a middle
- an ending
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be complete. A story can be better shaped if the finish is considered before the middle.
Step 6: A Standard Narrative Arc
It would be challenging for the audience to comprehend what is happening in the story without all three of the elements above. However, a story needs more than simply these three basic components. The narrative arc, which is the following layer, bears the story’s level of suspense and will be completely developed in the following step of the 3D pipeline: scriptwriting.
For instance, a normal feature film might have a thrilling opening to pique viewers’ interest and persuade them to keep watching. Then, after a brief decrease in anxiety, a series of increasingly severe crises begin to unfold, one after the other. The ultimate showdown will then be presented. Finally, the strain eases.
Ensure your story has a typical narrative arc that can hold the reader’s attention to the end.
Step 7: A Credible Character Arc
Characters, particularly the main character, are the story’s primary protagonists, and “change” is a crucial component of each of their journeys. The changes your characters go through outside of the narrative arc show up in the “character arc” in a way similar to the following:
First, the character arc for (at least) the primary character is established inside the setting’s exposition. Later, the character is put to the test by a dynamic situation. The scenario becomes more intense due to their attempts to cope with this tragedy.
Their lives will never be the same again after this crucial moment. Here, a dramatic question is posed, and the story’s conclusion will provide the answer.
Second, the main character tries to solve the issue brought up by the turning moment. The attempts, however, only make things worse, forcing the main character to gain new knowledge and abilities and a greater sense of self.
Thirdly, the character develops a fresh perspective on who they are. The primary focus of the character’s story moves from gaining new powers or skills to awakening. As a result of developing a deeper sense of self, the character transforms.
Step 8: A Fascinating Depiction Of The Impossible
Many 3D animation studios now think that live-action, where the audience is less aware of the illusion of what they are seeing, is the perfect setting for a realistic 3D storytelling animation. Ironically, making a 3D animated feature or short film that is a perfect replica of reality frequently looks unpleasant and fails to grab viewers’ interest.
When paired with a narrative set in a fantastical universe that could never be completely portrayed in live-action, the true potential of the 3D animation medium is revealed. This holds for a 3D animated animation, especially the plot.
Your narrative must contain aspects that can use the distinctive qualities of 3D animation, such as exaggeration. The degree of exaggeration employed in 3D animation can vary greatly between different products, ranging from the classic definition of exaggeration—presenting reality in a greater and more extreme form—to supernatural or unbelievable changes in the appearance of characters, environment, or the story itself.
However, it’s crucial to strike a balance in how those components are overstated about one another.
Final Words
In conclusion, embracing the captivating world of animated storytelling is undeniably a paradigm-shifting move for any marketing strategy. For companies seeking to harness the power of storytelling animation, it’s important to consider professional resources like 2D animation services, 3D animation services, and animated motion graphics companies. These expert partners possess the technical prowess and creative finesse required to craft narratives that transcend traditional marketing boundaries.
By collaborating with such animation specialists, businesses can navigate the intricate steps of crafting a captivating story, from defining core ideas to creating well-developed characters, building immersive worlds, introducing engaging conflicts, constructing logical storylines, and shaping credible character arcs.
