Sometimes people just need a quick and easy explanation to better understand how your business product service solves their problem.
Explainer videos are more than just information videos. When designed correctly, they can become an effective tool for brand storytelling that wins countless customers over time.
If you are a marketer or business professional who’s planning to create explainer videos for your brand or business and looking for some inspiration, you have come to the right page. In this article, we will share with you some of the best examples of explainer videos that are noteworthy and inspiring. But first, let’s understand what explainer videos are and learn about the most common types of explainer videos.
An explaining video is a short video that presents an idea, product or service, or explains briefly something about a brand or business. With help of explainer videos, you can educate your audience and give them a clearer picture of what you are offering in a concise and easy-to-understand manner. Publishing a well-designed explainer video can have a positive impact on your brand, since it’s an emotionally persuasive form of content that can influence your target audience to take action and associate closely with your brand.
Animation is one of the most preferred formats for creating explainer videos, since it often makes explaining technical and complex aspects easier, especially in cases where creating live action video is difficult or unrealistic. Animated explainer videos also let you unleash your creativity and reduce the limitations that come with live action explainer videos. Depending on your requirements, you can create either 2D or 3D animated explainer videos.
This type of explainer video makes use of motion graphics, abstract images and text to explain complex ideas in detail with the help of visual effects, animation and other cinematic techniques.
This format of explainer videos has grown a lot in popularity due to its mass appeal and ease of creation. It makes use of animation to show images and text that are hand drawn and then erased, to be presented page by page on a virtual whiteboard.
Screencast explainer videos are used to showcase the working of a software application game or website by incorporating the recorded imagery from a screen. These videos are very effective when it comes to explaining the functions or highlighting the features of your software product or web application without having them go through several pages of text-based instructions.
Live action explainer videos are the best-suited option for companies that are offering a people-oriented service or selling a physical product. They are created with the help of live action footage that involves real people, objects and environments. When you choose this format for your explainer videos, your viewers can better connect with your content on an emotional level, since most of us are naturally drawn to real-life imagery.
When it comes to creating explainer videos, there are plenty of design options, themes and emotional techniques to choose from, depending on your brand messaging and the nature of the information you want to deliver to your audience. You can design your explainer videos to be funny, serious or purely informative, depending on your business objectives. To better understand which style of explainer videos is the right one for your business, let’s have a look at some of the coolest explainer video examples and gather some much-needed inspiration from brands that have done it right.
This explainer video created by Amazon Go to showcase their proprietary shopping experience does an excellent job of explaining their offerings and inspiring shoppers to try their services. The live action footage, voiceover and background music have been blended together to create effective brand messaging to win customers.
If you are a B2B player, you may want to watch this explainer video closely. It was created by Microsoft to educate the viewers about their enterprise cloud solution, Azure. The narration they have used in the video is an example of a solid script that motivates their potential clients. The voiceover has a soft feel to it that goes really well with the smooth animations to deliver their message effectively.
This explainer video by Fiverr uses live action footage, graphics and visual effects to promote their freelance platform to small businesses. They have showcased four different entrepreneurial journeys along with their challenges and successes to connect with entrepreneurs who are looking to hire freelancers for their projects. The uplifting soundtrack along with the narration and direction of the video suits their brand messaging perfectly. It couldn’t get any better!
This is an educational explainer video by Ted-ED. Just like their other videos, the main purpose for creating this one is to educate their viewers, which is why the length of this video is a bit longer than your average explainer video that’s often sales-oriented. They have used beautiful hand-drawn images and a calm voiceover to answer a random question with clarity and insight. This is the secret sauce which makes their videos interesting to watch for just about any kind of audience.
If you want to create an explainer video to show your target audience how to sign up for your online platform here is a great example. The video has a dramatic beginning along with tense music to intrigue the viewers. However, it soon turns into a funny and light video that explains their sign-up process to the viewers in good detail. Who says explainer videos can’t be funny?
This one is a thought-provoking short film cum explainer video directed by John Kahrs, an Academy award winner. Lyft has done a great job of using an emotional storyline and effective brand messaging to make their explainer video resonate with their potential customers.
Here’s a great example of how you can use animations to answer a technical question in an interesting way. This explainer video by Tech Insider hooks the viewers from start to finish and conveys information on how deep the ocean really is. Again, this one is an educational video which is why it’s longer than the average sales-oriented explainer video.
In most of their ads, Grammarly does a good job of showing the benefits of using their software, while keeping the explainer video entertaining and fun to watch. They are known for producing high-quality promotional videos that demonstrate to the viewers just how easy it is to use their software, inspiring them to sign up for it right away.
Visa has demonstrated a solid brand presence in this explainer video using its branded colour palette, right from the start. They have used split screens to showcase multiple scenarios, along with statistics to back up the points they have mentioned in the voiceover.
It’s another good example of how you can use animation smartly to explain a complex topic with ease.
Uber Eats created this explainer video for anyone who wants to make some extra money by working as a food delivery executive for them. The video is less than 2 minutes long and does a good job of answering a wide range of questions that anyone considering the work opportunity may have.
Hive – British Gas from Claudio Salas on Vimeo.
With animation as your chosen format, you can let your imagination soar. As you can see in this explainer video, Hive has used anthropomorphic elephants, football-playing trout, taxi cab skates and what not to create a video that is just as quirky as it’s amazing. Must say, it gets the job done!
If you are planning to create an explainer that promotes your software, this is an example worth checking. This explainer video has helped Headspace introduce the concept of meditation to millions of people in a fun and friendly way. They have created some unique colourful animated characters that make their audience instantly recognise their brand every time they come across one of their marketing videos. Good job, Headspace!
We hope you found the content and examples shared in this article useful for your explainer video project. If those brands and so many others can do it, so can you! All you need initially is a unique idea for your explainer video.
However, if your company is struggling to identify the most suitable type of explainer video for your brand or the right tone for delivering the message, you need the help of a professional corporate video production team. At CoolBox, we have created explainer videos for countless brands in various industries and we can do it for yours too. For more information on how we can help, contact us today!
