Shake that groove thang and give your brand a little personality. Or just be boring. It’s really up to you.
THE BRANDING PROCESS. The big, daunting task of giving a company a little life. But how much life have you really given it? This is your child – your baby. A breathing organism. And I think we all learned from Jurassic Park that life finds a way, but it doesn’t really come into full frame until a cup of water starts to shake from the thunder of dinosaur feet. A dinosaur that is what??? You guessed it. MOVING! And just like Rexy, your brand needs to be moving too.
If your brand doesn’t move, how is it supposed to move others?
In a recent episode of Content Alchemy, Shelby Hagerdon and Matt Vojacek discussed the advantages of motion branding and how to apply it to your brand. Humans are natural storytellers and your brand can tell stories too through motion. And not just by making elaborate videos (although those are fun too), but also through a simple logo animation. How your brand moves – even in its most subtle moments – tells a story..
What is Motion Branding?
Here’s our definition:
Motion branding is the act of bringing static visual elements to life by integrating movement, sound, and visual effects – blending video and animation into the overall branding. It serves as part of the brand guides to ensure all motion – animation and live action – are treated similarly across all platforms and mediums.
Let’s break this down.
Motion branding is the act of bringing static visual elements to life by integrating movement, sound, and visual effects
Like we said earlier, a brand is a living organism, a creature interacting with the world. And this means it needs to not only be seen, but it needs to move and make some noise! When people first see your brand, think of it as if it’s walking into the room and introducing itself. Is it wearing a leather jacket with a long gaite and a switchblade comb? Speaking with a low, cavalier voice. Or perhaps it’s bubbly, wearing a pink prom dress with a train of glitter following it everywhere it goes. A singing voice to rival any pop star without the slightest hint of autotune.
These things matter. It’s all about personality. We’ll get to more on that later.
…blending video and animation into the overall branding.
This is fairly self-explanatory. You are now adding video and animation to the brand itself. It isn’t something to be added later when you eventually need a video made. It’s something to think about from the very start.
It serves as part of the brand guides to ensure all motion – animation and live action – are treated similarly across all platforms and mediums.
And here it is! Motion is now part of the brand guides. This not only injects the brand with personality, it also ensures that this personality will be felt no matter who is creating a video and where it’s going. A video filled with quick cuts and jerky animation says something different than long shots and smooth transitions. And having this as part of the brand guides tells everyone making videos in the future exactly what they need to know as they are designing the look and feel of the content – no matter if it’s going on social media, television, or a billboard. It also helps in various mediums, from the logo animation to a brand film. It’s all speaking to each other.
But while motion should be part of the brand guide, it doesn’t have to be a rule book. It’s like in Pirates of the Caribbean. The “Pirate Code” isn’t a set of rules, it’s more just guidelines. And you just have to decide exactly what and how much can be left open to interpretation.
Why Does This Matter and Why Are We Talking About it?
Like we’ve said, we’re solidifying the brand’s identity. What it looks, sounds, and feels like. What its vibe is. What it… tastes like? (I think our brand tastes like a cold peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a warm day. Refreshing and playful.)
But if you haven’t noticed, it seems like everyone is talking about their branding – particularly when it comes to motion. There seems to be a pendulum that’s constantly swinging back and forth between campaigns and branding. We go through a phase where it’s new campaign after new campaign. Then the pendulum swings back and everyone is getting a good rebrand. We’re currently in that swing.
The last time we were here, we were in the middle of COVID. Nobody was buying anything, so brands started focusing on their messaging instead. Then, once people were buying again, we ramped up the campaigns once more. But now we’re back to branding! And this time, motion has become a much more important piece of the puzzle.
With TikTok, Reels, and YoutTube Shorts just growing in popularity, it’s essential to have a good grasp on exactly what your brand looks like on their platforms when in video format. How is it speaking to its audience when they randomly encounter it on their endless scrolls? And how do you get it to stay top of mind in their algorithms? You need to intensify your recognition and you can do that by giving it a striking, memorable personality.
How Does Motion Impact a Brand’s Meaning and Personality?
Emotional connection with audience
Humans are fairly simple in essence. We personify everything. If you see a little robot delivering your DoorDash, you may say, “Oh, he’s cute!” How can that robot be cute? It is metal, gears, wires, plastic… It doesn’t even have pronouns! Yet, we have given it these characteristics. He’s a cute little guy just making his way in the world. We have established an emotional connection without even interacting with the robot. But your brand is interactive and putting it in motion helps us, as simple humans, apply characteristics to it by way of our prior knowledge of the implied meanings of various movements. You are developing a connection with us through subtle emotion – all through motion. (Because you can’t spell “emotion” without “motion”!)
Set your brand apart
We’ve all seen an AI logo by this point. No movement, no personality. Just a standard logo based on the thousands of other logos it has analyzed. It’s not unique to your brand, it’s just a conglomeration of other brands mashed together. And on top of that, it’s not drawing you in with a unique movement either. A brand with its very own look and movement makes you stand out from the crowd.
Cross-platform consistency
There are a lot of ways movement can be interpreted, which is why it’s so important to add motion to your brand guides. As we’ve stated before, you want your brand’s motion to remain recognizable whether it’s in the logo animation or a brand film. And if you’re working with various teams to make lots of content, you want everyone speaking the same language.
User experience
Do you have a complicated brand with lots of moving parts? Let a little motion simplify things! From directing the eye to a specific action using simple camera movements or utilizing a more robust design to point an audience where they need to go, motion keeps explainers and experiences engaging, ensuring no one misses a step.
The world is constantly moving… Your brand should too. It not only breathes life into your branding, but it also humanizes it – relating it further to your audience. And by asking the right questions, it doesn’t have to feel daunting. Instead, it can make you connect even more with your brand.
Listen to our full episode, “What is Motion Branding?”, and hear all our thoughts on Content Alchemy, available wherever you get your podcasts.
