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“As a Creative Director, I think animation is a very powerful tool because it is limited only by your imagination. You can break the laws of physics and rewrite viewer expectations through animation. Animals can talk, and plants can sing. All you have to do is animate and sometimes, add some sound to it,” says Tejus, Associate Creative Director of Films at Everything Design.
Take it or leave it, visual content can increase information retention by up to 65%, compared to just 10% with text alone. This is a critical piece of information for most B2B businesses who rely heavily on texts. Studies have also shown that the average person spends just 8 seconds focusing on one piece of content before moving on. In this narrow window of opportunity, animation’s ability to immediately grab attention makes it an essential tool for B2B marketers, educators, and content creators alike. Whether it’s a product explainer video, a social media ad, or an instructional guide, animation injects life into the content, keeping viewers engaged for longer. Not only that, animation has found a very important place in the medical industry, from surgical simulations to patient education by revolutionising the way medical professionals communicate, educate and innovate.
Static visuals and lengthy blocks of text often struggle to compete with the constant stream of information that bombards us. Enter animation, a powerful tool that goes far beyond mere aesthetics. Animation combines visuals, audio, and text to deliver a more immersive, engaging, and memorable experience, making it an ideal medium for effective communication. From explaining complex ideas to fostering emotional connections, animation has become an indispensable asset across industries.
Here’s why animation has such a profound impact on communication and how it can elevate your message in ways that static visuals alone cannot.
1. Animation Captures Attention and Boosts Engagement
In a world where attention spans are dwindling, the ability to capture and maintain audience attention is invaluable. Animation excels at doing just that. The human brain is naturally drawn to movement, and animated content leverages this by adding dynamic elements that stand out amidst a sea of static visuals. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, capturing and holding an audience's attention is no small feat.
Think about how Google Doodles—the small, often animated tweaks to Google’s homepage—instantly catch your eye. Whether it’s a celebration of an iconic historical figure or a seasonal event, the animation draws attention in ways a static logo simply wouldn’t.
You can enhance engagement, combine animation with interactive elements—like clickable infographics or dynamic explainer videos—allowing users to actively engage with your content rather than passively consuming it.
2. Simplifying Complex Ideas with Clarity
One of the greatest strengths of animation lies in its ability to simplify complex concepts. By breaking down complicated information into visual, step-by-step processes, animation makes even the most intricate ideas easier to digest and understand. This is particularly useful for industries like technology, medicine, or finance, where jargon and technical details can overwhelm an audience.
Explainer videos, for instance, use animation to visually demonstrate processes, systems, or ideas that are difficult to convey through words alone. Whether you’re explaining how a piece of software works, illustrating a scientific process, or mapping out a user journey, animation can bring clarity to the most intricate details.
Consider companies like Dropbox, which use animated explainer videos to break down how their services work in a way that's easy to grasp. Rather than relying on text-heavy explanations, the animation simplifies the user experience, showing potential customers the value of the service in just a few seconds.
As a B2B firm, you can use motion graphics to transform static data, statistics, and infographics into engaging, animated visuals. This can make a significant impact in presentations or on websites, where complex information often needs to be quickly absorbed.
3. Enhancing Retention and Recall
The dual coding theory posits that humans process visual and verbal information through different channels. Animation, by combining audio, visuals, and text, taps into this principle, making information easier to absorb and recall.
Animation is not just about making things look interesting; it actually helps your audience retain information longer. Whether it’s a product demo, a training video, or a marketing campaign, animation can reinforce your key messages by presenting them in a visually stimulating and memorable format.
Companies like Duolingo effectively use animated visuals in their language-learning app to enhance retention. By incorporating colourful animations and interactive elements, Duolingo makes language learning more engaging and, therefore, easier for users to remember key vocabulary and grammar concepts.
If you are a B2B EdTech brand, create educational or training content, leverage animation to highlight critical points, reiterate key messages, and visually break down complex instructions. This makes it easier for viewers to retain and later recall important information.
4. Creating Emotional Connections with Your Audience
Humans are hardwired to respond to stories. Animation allows you to transform data, facts, and services into compelling narratives that evoke emotion. By adding personality to your content, animation humanises your message, making it more relatable and memorable.
This is where the power of character animation shines. Think about how iconic animated characters like Geico's Gecko or Mailchimp’s Freddie instantly become the face of the brand, bringing warmth and relatability to otherwise impersonal services. Animation adds a layer of emotional depth that is often hard to achieve with static visuals or live-action alone.
Take Airbnb's animated explainer video for its Airbnb Experiences feature. By using soft, hand-drawn animations, the video creates a warm, inviting atmosphere that speaks to the emotional aspect of travel and exploration, fostering a deeper connection with its audience.
When you are crafting animated content, aim to tap into emotions that align with your brand’s core message. Animation can evoke feelings of joy, trust, excitement, or empathy, depending on the narrative and style you use. It not only stands for entertainment but also for meaningful B2B communications where you are trying hard to connect.
5. Animation is Flexible and Versatile Across Platforms
Another reason animation is such a powerful communication tool is its versatility. Animated content can be easily adapted to different platforms, formats, and audiences. Whether it's a 30-second ad for social media, a detailed explainer video for your website, or an interactive infographic for a presentation, animation offers a high degree of flexibility.
This adaptability is especially useful in the B2B space, where information often needs to be customised for different decision-makers. Animation allows for modular content creation, where elements can be easily reused or repurposed across various marketing channels.
Slack uses animations not just in their product tutorials but also in their marketing campaigns and user interface. The smooth transitions and subtle animations guide users through the app, creating a unified experience that is both functional and visually appealing.
Every time you are designing animations, consider how they’ll be displayed across various platforms. Adapt the content to fit the dimensions and requirements of each platform (e.g., Instagram, YouTube, websites) to ensure your message is clear and impactful.
The Future of Animation in Communication
As technologies like AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality), and AI (artificial intelligence) continue to evolve, the role of animation in communication will only expand. These innovations offer new and exciting ways to blend animation with interactive experiences, further enhancing how we engage, inform, and connect with audiences.
For instance, virtual product demos with interactive animations allow users to explore and engage with products before making a purchase. AI-driven animation tools are also making it easier for businesses to create personalised, automated animations that speak directly to individual user preferences.
Let us now look at a few more examples to understand how mid-sized businesses across industries are actively adopting animation.
1. Gong.io
- Industry: Sales Intelligence/Revenue Operations
- How they use animation: Gong, a revenue intelligence platform, uses animations to explain how their AI-powered tool analyses sales conversations and provides insights to improve outcomes. Their explainer videos leverage clean, simple animations to break down how their product works and the value it offers, helping potential customers grasp complex AI-driven insights without getting overwhelmed by jargon.
- Why it's effective: Their use of animation simplifies the complex AI processes their product employs, making it easier for potential customers to understand and engage with. By using animated explainer videos in their marketing, Gong.io reduces the technical barrier for their audience, increasing engagement with their sales-driven solutions.
2. Basecamp
- Industry: Project Management & Team Collaboration
- How they use animation: Basecamp uses subtle animations to enhance the user experience of its project management platform. The animations guide users through different features of the platform, like project setup, task management, and team communication. In marketing, they use short animated explainers to show how their software streamlines team collaboration.
- Why it's effective: Basecamp’s animations are designed to make its interface feel intuitive and approachable, helping users—particularly small and mid-sized teams—quickly adapt to the platform. Their clean, functional animations complement the overall simplicity that Basecamp promises, making it a go-to tool for businesses that need effective project management without complexity.
3. Typeform
- Industry: Online Form Building & Surveys
- How they use animation: Typeform uses animation to create a smoother, more engaging user experience. Their forms and surveys use micro-animations to guide users from one question to the next, enhancing interactivity. In addition, their marketing materials use animated explainers to showcase how their tools can improve customer engagement and data collection.
- Why it's effective: Typeform’s animations focus on making interactions feel natural and engaging. By animating transitions between form fields and using motion graphics in tutorials, they make data collection feel less like a chore and more like an interactive conversation—perfect for B2B businesses looking to improve customer feedback collection or lead generation.
4. Vidyard
- Industry: Video Marketing & Analytics
- How they use animation: Vidyard, a video hosting and analytics platform for B2B marketing and sales teams, makes extensive use of animation in their product tutorials, marketing materials, and customer onboarding processes. They use animated graphics to illustrate how video content can boost sales and engage prospects more effectively.
- Why it's effective: Animation is at the core of Vidyard’s brand messaging because it directly relates to their product offering—video marketing. They use animation to visually demonstrate data and results, such as how video content impacts conversion rates or lead engagement, making their value proposition clearer and more tangible for businesses.
5. Crazy Egg
- Industry: Web Analytics/Conversion Optimization
- How they use animation: Crazy Egg uses animation to explain how their heatmap tools work, helping users understand how visitors interact with their websites. Their explainer videos employ simple, cartoon-like animations to show how their tool identifies areas of a website that are performing well and those that need improvement.
- Why it's effective: Crazy Egg’s use of animation breaks down complex data analysis into an easily digestible format, allowing business owners and marketers to quickly grasp how user behaviour impacts their website’s performance. Their animations make technical web analytics approachable, helping companies improve conversions and user experience without feeling overwhelmed by data.
Conclusion
Animation is far more than a visual embellishment—it’s a powerful tool for communication, education, and engagement. By leveraging the unique combination of visuals, audio, and text, animation can simplify complex ideas, increase retention, and foster emotional connections with your audience. As digital media continues to evolve, animation will remain a critical component of how brands and businesses deliver their messages in a compelling and memorable way.
In the B2B space, where decisions often involve multiple stakeholders and complex products or services, animation can cut through the noise, making it easier for potential clients to understand and connect with your message. Whether it’s through explainer videos, interactive demos, or even subtle UI animations, mid-sized B2B businesses can elevate their communication and engage audiences more effectively by leveraging the power of animation.
So, the next time you’re looking to create content that truly resonates with your audience, don’t just rely on static visuals or plain text. Think animation—and watch your engagement soar.