What is an explainer animation?

An explainer animation breaks down complex topics or a series of related subjects into clear, understandable segments, making it easier for the viewer to grasp the information.

It’s a broad brush term covering a wide variety of subjects, from training and onboarding videos, to product marketing videos, to scientific and medical explainers to more cerebral videos explaining a concept or idea.

Explainer videos truly showcase the power of motion graphics. By combining 2D animation with a voiceover, they deliver a more comprehensive and engaging experience, allowing viewers to process visual and auditory information simultaneously. This combination enhances understanding and retention by reinforcing concepts with both sights and sounds.

Moreover, animated graphics are significantly more engaging and memorable than the traditional approach of having a person talk directly to the camera. While a great speaker can captivate an audience, animated videos are much more effective at maintaining attention and delivering content in a dynamic and visually appealing way.

What are animated explainer videos used for?

The main purpose of creating an animated explainer video is to make information as accessible as possible, and to inform the viewer.

The average web user reads only 20% of text on a web page. In contrast over 50% of people will watch a video of up to 3 minutes to the end.

This means that explaining using video is going to be much more effective than explaining using text, as well as being more beneficial for social engagement (more of which below).

It’s why you should seriously consider creating an explainer video for a range of purposes from marketing a product for a potential customer, to highlighting the key conclusions from a research study or a report.

A website visitor will be drawn to an animated video on a landing page, and their engagement with the key messages on the page and ultimately the call-to-action will be higher.

A few years back, the World Bank published some statistics which laid bare the dangers of confining important information (in this case, research) to a PDF.

It revealed that 517 PDF reports that it published between 2008 and 2012 had not been downloaded from its website. Not even once.

This led Christopher Ingraham to write in the Washington Post: “What if someone had already figure out the answers to the world’s most pressing policy problems, but those solutions were buried deep in a PDF, somewhere nobody will ever read them?”

Social media and explainer videos

Video is a must for explaining topics on social media. Take X for example, in each post you have a mere 280 characters to ‘explain’ your topic. In contrast, by allowing videos of up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds (and longer in certain instances), you have the equivalent of roughly 350 words – a massive increase in space to communicate.

Allied to this, video receives significantly more attention on social media than text posts. On X, videos attract 10 times the amount of engagement as posts without video. Similarly on Facebook, people spend 5 times as long looking at posts containing video compared to those without.

YouTube is a popular resource for explainer videos, especially those that set out to answer a particular “how to” question. It’s also an essential place to put those product explainer videos for marketing purposes.

What makes for a great explainer animation?

As we’ve detailed above, there’s such a wide use for explainer animations that to generalise about what makes a ‘great animation’ is a difficult task.

But at a high level, it would have to be the video’s ability to:

1. Keep its audience engaged throughout

2. To clearly and succinctly explain the topic at hand

3. To inform the audience

4. And to clearly signpost what they should do next i.e. the call to action.

Our holistic approach to animation focuses on consistently considering the target audience throughout the production process to ensure the content aligns with your goals. By crafting scripts that seamlessly integrate with visuals and creating bespoke graphics, we deliver a unique and on-brand viewing experience. This approach offers significant advantages over using standard explainer video software or AI, which often results in a generic, off-brand look.

When creating an explainer animation, deciding whether to use shapes, objects, or characters is crucial. Animated characters can generate empathy and relatability, with options ranging from simple stick figures to detailed characters. The ideal choice often lies between these extremes, offering full-formed characters without facial features to avoid a cartoony look for serious topics.

Complementing the visuals, a well-chosen voiceover enhances the story, with the right voice actor helping shape the video’s tone and impression, ensuring effective communication.

Whether you’re choosing a male or female, neutral, regional or overseas accent, utilising a qualified voice actor will always yield the best results.

How an explainer video company can help

Senate Media is an established explainer video production company. We have a wealth of experience in creating explainer animations utilising carefully crafted scripts and storyboards, bespoke graphics and a large pool of professional voiceover artists.

We are specialist video marketers for anyone looking to turn a serious and complex document into an engaging animation – in the fields of public policy, science and medicine and beyond.