Article

Using Strategy In Animation

October 14, 2015

Strategy is often used by advertising agencies to determine the direction and purpose of a design project before the art begins. It helps align a company’s brand/goals with their advertising. While often used in the advertising world it’s strangely overlooked by most animation companies even though the main purpose of most (paid) animation is for advertising. Having a strategy with animation is the difference of giving a product that just looks good, to one of giving a product that’s effective (and looks good).

Anyone that pays for animation wants one simple thing, ROI (return on investment). That return can be one of several things but the purpose of a strategy is to have an understanding of a brand and it’s users to create a type of map that shows where the project will end up and the reasons why.

Solving a problem

The first step in creating an animation strategy is to define the variables. Who is the target audience? What’s important to that audience? What is the goal of the project? What’s the budget for the project? etc.. As artists, we’re problem solvers. However, to be an effective problem solver you need to fully understand what the problem is.

to be an effective problem solver you need to fully understand what the problem is.

Without a strategy, animation is made based on feelings rather than data. Feeling-based decisions aren’t always bad but data-based decisions will always have a much higher percentage chance of being effective. I realize that sounds boring but if you analyze a brand like an accountant more than like an artist you will have facts to stand behind to create higher-value products.

Why does a project need to exist?

As part of a strategy, the most important part is defining the elements that help produce the story and purpose. What do you want to say in the animation? What do you want the viewer to do? Why will this video exist? Those are all questions that need to be answered when developing a strategy for it to be effective.

Style with reason

If a brand already exists, then there’s a defined world that you should make within because it’s already recognizable to its customers. This doesn’t mean you can’t try new things with a brand, but it should be able to exist in the same world. Some might see that as a negative idea but to me, that’s where things get interesting. It’s like a treasure hunt in a closet, it’s small and mostly dull but there’s always something interesting to find in there.

There are many different animation styles and each one has its own feeling to a brand or campaign. The decision of style should come with a strategy in hand. What makes sense? What has meaning? What helps tell the story? When creating a style, every element in the design should mean something and a strategy should be used to help navigate that design to the brand qualities and message.

People often come to us wanting a certain style of animation without reason or purpose simply because they recently saw something that “looks cool” and they want that. Maybe they’re right and that’s the best possible solution for what they need, but when we develop a strategy we can determine the best solutions for a brand/message and act confidently.

Read more about strategy here.

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