Ah yes, the corporate training video. More ridiculed than the recruitment video, and only slightly less reviled than the school project video. But little do most people know it doesn’t have to be this way. Indeed, your training videos can be eye-catching, funny, or even – dare I say – interesting. Don’t believe it? Check out our eight tips for making great animated training videos and decide for yourself.

Every couple of years there seems to be a new fad in corporate video. When whiteboard animation first came swaggering onto the scene it too seemed like the kind of phenomenon that would enter with a blaze of glory and fade shortly after with not so much as a whimper. Yet here we are several years later and whiteboard animation is still going strong, like a reality TV show nobody quite understands the appeal of but everybody keeps on watching.

Surprisingly, the answer to this appeal lies largely in the psychology behind what we’re watching. There are several subconscious reasons we’re drawn toward whiteboard animation, and today we’re shedding a little light on how they fit together.

Even in the twilight years of cat videos, vloggers, and ice bucket challenges it can be hard to see how any online video platform could begin to compete with YouTube. As of 2017 their audience numbers were in the range of 1,300,000,000 people.

In recent years though we’ve seen the beginning of what may prove to be the fall of Rome — uhh, I mean YouTube — through unannounced changes to the way particular content is promoted to the average viewer. These changes, which define and elevate ‘advertiser friendly’ content at the cost of all else, have left even the most popular YouTubers short of views and looking for alternative platforms. The news is even worse for animated content, as YouTube’s ‘quantity is better than quality’ algorithms leave labour-intensive media like animation in the dust.

If your brand is one of many who look to animated explainer videos as an effective way to explain your products and services, it’s worthwhile knowing what other options you have when choosing a platform to host your brand’s videos.

If you’re lucky, the new year can bring with it new resolutions, a new slate, and new creative ideas. For the rest of us unlucky chumps, the vast opportunity of a new year can bring with it a crippling creative dry spell. A blank page is intimidating, especially when you’re coming up with ideas to promote your brand through video. Your company is relying on you, your customers are waiting on you, and your production choices depend on your idea. No pressure, right?

Well luckily we’ve got a stash of new year video ideas for your brand right here, waiting to be poached, appropriated, and otherwise taken advantage of. Have fun!

Think about it: how many restaurants do you know that run their own farms? How many plumbers make their own pipes, and how many writers whittle their own pencils? Business partnership benefits everyone in these situations, and it only makes sense that creative and technical fields work by the same principle. That’s why so many agencies are looking to partner with animation studios when a client is in need of an effective campaign. No need for an in-house animation crew when a production house is just a call away. But why specifically are agencies increasingly drawn toward using animation for their client’s campaigns? Let’s take a look at seven reasons for this phenomenon:

Whether you’re looking to fit your brand video in with the most successful explainers of late, or you’re looking to find out what’s popular so you can buck the trend, it’s important to know what’s out there, what’s popular, and what’s cliché to the point of staleness. Today we’re looking at just a few of the current trends in explainer animation within the visuals, the music, and the scriptwriting.

Brainstorming: it’s a term that fills some of us with creative energy, and others with a sinking dread only paralleled by hearing the phrase ‘group assignment’ at university. But when you’re looking to develop ideas for your brand’s next video, a team brainstorming session can the innovative, time-saving push you need to get there.

So how can you set up a brainstorming session for your team’s best chance of success? Check out our 6 quick tips!

One of the first things you’ll likely do when planning any sort of business strategy is profile your audience. Who are your target demographics? What are their shared interests? Where do they spend their time? When your audience is defined by the city they live in it can create a clearer picture of the branding they might respond to… or it can segregate, divert, or confuse your idea of your target market.

Good ol’ perpetually sunny Brisbane is no exception to the rule, and given the city extends from the beachy east to the urban riverside to the rural outskirts, it can be hard to pinpoint what unites a Brisbane market. Today we’ve got three tips to help get your grounding with an audience of Brisbanites, and how this fits in with a campaign centred around animated explainer videos.

Good, cheap, fast. Pick two.

It’s the project management triangle, the triple constraint, the two-sentence explanation as to why we can’t always get what we want. In the corporate world, and especially in the world of video production, the quality, cost, and output speed of your project are what determines its ability to go ahead.

So when you’re looking to get a brand video made, which two elements should you choose? Is it better to favour quality over timing? Or to stick to your budget even if it means pulling back the scope of the video? Let’s take a quick look at the pros and cons of all three options:

Writing is one of those skills that seeps into almost every other creative pursuit—songs need lyrics, art needs critical interpretation, and videos need scripts. It’s no surprise then that good writing is powerful enough to salvage a mediocre project, or destroy an otherwise reasonable one.

Over the centuries some well-known ‘best practice’ tips have emerged to guide new and experienced writers in creating quality work. Though the tips were originally developed with creative writing in mind, today we’re taking a look at how they also apply to writing scripts for brand videos, corporate animation, and explainers.