There was a time back in the 19th century when the only animation technique known was stop motion animation, which was a tedious process involving the arrangement of objects in separate shots being captured frame by frame. Animation has taken many, many steps forward since then thanks to studios like Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, Pixar and others.
This advancement in animation hasn’t only benefitted the film and entertainment industry though. Advertisers, creative agencies and marketing companies took advantage of this technology as well. One of the first successful ad campaigns was Kellogg’s when it used their tell-tale cereal box characters in their TV commercials to reach out to children and their parents.
Since then animation has been successfully used to market businesses all over the world. Although the common theme is to introduce a bright, happy, catchy feeling related to the object, creative experts have made full use of the endless possibilities of the medium and explored many different options with it.
There are many reasons why animation does so well when used to promote businesses. For one thing, it gives us many more options as opposed to any other medium. Static ads don’t even compare. And while we can sometimes get good results from filmed ads, it doesn’t quite have the flexibility of animations. Having fifteen background characters in a scene, for example, would be much simpler to produce in an animation than it would be to film them in one.
Animated ads also have an advantage as far as attracting people’s attention goes. Animations affect both sides of the brain greatly. It plays with our creative side, and appeals to the parts of our mind that only deals with logic. Thus, animation effectively captures our imagination as well as our conscious thoughts. An animated ad is more likely to leave a long lasting impression in our minds than any other type.
With the integration of social networks into marketing campaigns, they can be very easily spread around by people who appreciate it. A nice way to increase our chances is by using animated ad campaigns because they are often found to elicit more positive responses from people. Clients and viewers who liked the campaign may feel more inclined to share it with their friends and followers via mediums like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. if what they’re seeing engages them successfully.
A camera can’t always be used to capture every little detail, and even when it can, it can get quite expensive. But with animation, any skillful artist can depict details for half the price. Animation, to put it simply, is limitless when it comes to the number of possibilities. It is impossible to display certain things by simply recording them with a camera, when the range of things that can be shown through animation is much broader.
That’s why ads work so well as marketing tools. After, you can’t really use a live talking monkey to get your kids to eat their breakfast cereals can you?