Live action or animated video? It’s been a long debate which type of video is more effective to use as an animated explainer video. Both are very different methods that aim for the same result, to get your customers engaged and to reel them in and purchase your product. There are many ways these videos can do that. But before we drive into a conclusion, let’s try to understand what these two are all about:
Live Action Video:
The live action video is the use of real people with scripted – or unscripted interactions or reactions with your product. Often this tells a story of how your product can help the customer, or a story that will evoke an emotional response from the viewer and then masterfully relating it to your product.
Types of Live Action Video:
- Live Action Video – These videos use a camera crew, actors, editors, post production and the whole shebang to tell a complete story of your product and thoroughly get you customers engaged with the video. Can be the cheapest and the most expensive method depending on how you use it and what you want.
- Testimonial Video – Using people to give commentary about how your product has helped them or analysis on how the product can be great all in all. The more high profile or credible the person, the better the desired effect will be.
Pros:
- Best used to showcase your tangible products and services through actions, stories, and dialog to convey the message in a realistic, more personal manner.
- Through this method you can easily connect with your audience by highlighting on the emotions that you would want to convey by using actual people to showcase your products and services. And having famous people endorse your product helps too!
Cons:
- You can only demonstrate limited concepts and ideas since there’s not much flexibility in using live action videos alone, unless you spend an astronomical amount of money on premier actors or personalities and / or combining it with animation.
Animated Video:
Types of Animated Explainer Video:
- Animated Screencast
- Kinetic Typography
- Whiteboard Animation
- Info graphic Animation
- Character Animation
- 3D Animation
- IOS Demo/ App Demo Video
- Music Based Video
Pros:
- Animated explainer videos can come in all shapes, sizes, and forms. The flexibility is endless as long as you can imagine it and the animators can create it. And this also gets in touch with your viewer’s inner child and has the ability to keep the topic simple. With regards to branding, the colors of your brand don’t matter as this can be easily integrated with the video. In addition this is often way more affordable than hiring actors and a production crew.
Cons:
- One must be extremely careful whe creating an animated explainer video as too much detail or too little of it can result in misinformation, offense, or your video not making any sense at all. These will turn your customers away and leave a bad first impression to those you want to reach out to.
How to identify which explainer video will work best for your business?
- Identify the content purpose – What do you want your viewers to think and feel during and after they watch the video?
- Come up with a Marketing Goal – Live action tends to be better for appealing to a customer’s feelings as they pick up body language and nonverbal cues more. Animated video is more effective in explaining how something works as it is more memorable than watching someone demonstrate it.
- Know your Budget – Several factors affect the final cost of your video. In live action you need to consider the location, the cost of the actors, and the cost of the crew. Generally less is less expensive in this case. With animation this will vary by length and the kind of video it is. Don’t assume that cheaper is better in these cases, quality is always better than quantity.
- Classify your Target Audience – Who are you showing this to? What is your demographic? It is always good to keep in mind that showing a makeup video to people searching for power tools and farm equipment is absolutely pointless. Get your ad targeting right to make sure you reach the right people.
- Work on your Timeline – Never rush out something incomplete. Even big corporations fall into this trap because of poor time management. Make sure you follow schedules to the last second to have everything moving like clockwork.
- Select your Marketing Platform – Any video is good for any platform it depends on your content purpose and goals. Live action video is best for television commercials and branding purposes. You can then go online and spread the animation ads like wildfire to your target audience.
Generally, an animated explainer video will work out well for most projects, specifically anything that will be shared on the internet. Just make sure to look at all of your options, and use live action when the human element is needed to add more “oomph” to your product. And if you need some insperation? Well we are a pretty awesome animated explainer video company so check our work here.