Why are explainer videos generally less than 2 minutes?

Posted on by Viswa Dandu.

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It is not wrong to have a video with more than 2 minutes, but it will hardly be, attention-catching. Even though every creator knows the ‘engaging nature’ of a short video from experience, we have studies as well, to back up that statement. It has been found that viewers respond well to shorter videos better (especially 30-45 seconds), by watching it completely and sharing with their friends and business associates. If the duration increases to 60 seconds, the attention to the video seems to decrease relatively. And so, more the length of the video, lesser is the attention span and response from the viewers.

This is basically because, in the current time, the internet is flooded with videos. People have more options than they can handle, found at one single place. If the video doesn’t capture their attention in the first 15 seconds and they see the video is more than 2 minutes long, they’d rather move to the next video than wait and see its end. This is very true when it comes to B2C videos, the day-to-day customers have choices for one single type of product, so they prefer not to hang around with something that would ultimately bore them. It is not like a B2B where the officials have to hang back for the entirety of the video to completely understand what the service offers.

It is true that some of the successful viral videos have been more than 2 minutes. But they are put up by production houses and record companies to market their product, and fans are interested throughout due to the presence of their star. Other scenarios would be the funny, quirky or silliness of the video which works well with the viewers, who does not have an expectation for those videos. But when it comes to explainer videos, where the expectation is engaging the viewer, having a 2 minute or less video is the best shot that can be given for the product it sells.