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!

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.

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.

Ahh, Sydney. Home of Luna Park, AC/DC, that one revolving restaurant we all deny having dropped a few hundred bucks to eat at, and 42 Wallaby Way. Well, maybe not the last one.

With so many recognisable landmarks Sydney is not only the tourism capital of Australia, but also sits among the top-fifteen most visited cities in the world. But what if we want to discover the residents who choose to make their permanent home in the harbour city?

Trying to pin down the best way to present your brand a localised audience can be tricky amongst a transient tourist city. That’s why today we’re taking a look at three aspects of Sydneysider culture to help mould your brand message, and how to best present that message through animation.

Social media allows us to do two things with great efficiency: create and share content, and network with other users socially. Given how important both these tasks are in business networking it’s no wonder corporate presence is so ubiquitous across the social media landscape. These days if you’ve got something to share for your business, whether it’s a new product video or an exciting news release, social media is the place to do it.

But why do some businesses seem more savvy than others when it comes to social media, while others fail miserably using almost identical techniques? The truth is each popular sharing website has its own distinctive etiquette, there’s no one-size-fits-all method and what works for one site can get you positively ostracised from another. Knowing not only where your audience is but also how to not make a jerk of yourself when you get there is vital to making a good impression for your brand.

Luckily we’ve got a straightforward rundown on four of the most popular social media sites right now, and how they can work for promoting your brand and its video content.

Finding the right animation production house for your corporate video is a bit like managing a county fair pony. There can be a lot riding on it, and a ton of crap to sift through.

But wading through the piles of faceless animation studios can become faster, easier and less daunting when you’ve got a solid checklist of what to look for. You can safely assume the first step with any of these checklist items is to research and understand exactly what it is you’re looking to get out of your new animated video. Are you looking to increase sales of one particular product? Explain a complicated service in an easily digestible way? Create a more natural company image?

But once you’re clear on your ‘why’, it’s time to look at how any given animation house will work with your project. Today we’re revealing seven things you should look at to make sure you’re betting on the right pony.

What exactly is a startup? Everyone and their mother seems to have their own definition. Some define it as a new business designed for rapid growth, others consider technological innovation as key in identifying a startup, while others believe it describes the opening phases of what may become a larger company.

Whatever your definition, it’s fair to agree that startup companies come in many different forms. Lacking any best practice rules, it can be difficult to know how to advertise such an immeasurable type of business, let alone what type of advertising medium will work best. However, there are a few common features that most startups share when compared with other types of businesses.

Today we’re taking a look at four common startup features and determining how well animated advertising holds up against them.