On the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, a customer of ours needed to make a series of corporate training videos to teach its 180,000+ person workforce about their new post-coronavirus travel policy.
To make their training videos they had two choices: hire a video production company to make “live-action” training videos (videos made with cameras and actors), or hire an animation production company like ours to create the videos using custom animation.
Their needs were specific: visuals needed to align with their corporate branding, videos needed to be easy to change in the future, and most importantly they needed them to be FUN and something employees would actually look forward to watching.
Training videos should be something employees actually look forward to watching
The company chose animation and partnered with us to produce 30+ animated training videos. The videos were so well received that they’ve since expanded use of animation across other programs, not just for employee training.
If you’re looking to make training videos but aren’t sure what format to make them in, below we’ve compiled the 10 top reasons why animation is best for corporate training videos:
1. Race and gender-neutral
Animated training videos provide a great way to avoid sensitive topics like race and gender issues while still getting your messages across.
Replacing human characters with non-human ones for example, like animals or inanimate objects (products you sell, things related to your business, etc) keeps your content inclusive and is a creative way to get messages across while maybe even getting some laughs.
2. Cost-effective
If budgets are an issue, animation is an obvious choice since it’s considerably less expensive than other video formats.
With animation, there’s no need to hire actors, a studio, and everything else needed to produce a “live action” training video so the cost savings can be passed on to you.
3. Made remotely
With COVID-19 / social distancing making it more difficult to get groups of people together in the same room, animated training videos are produced 100% remotely, making them a safer and easier alternative to live action corporate training videos.
4. Make boring topics like employee training FUN
Safety training, booking travel and other (typically boring) topics can be made much more fun with animation. Using animated characters and entertaining visuals you break up the monotony of the corporate life, and can be a refreshing way to learn about corporate processes.
5. Easy to update and change later
Sometimes policies, branding, and training needs change, so from time-to-time you’ll need to update your training videos accordingly.
With animated training videos, changes can be made quickly and easily, since they’re made using software and there’s no need to get your crew back together or secure a video set to re-record.
Including humor makes training videos entertaining and memorable
6. Make training memorable
Animation puts smiles on employee faces, and reactions like these are what make it such a powerful tool for corporate training. In fact National Institutes of Health research found that emotion substantially influences memory performance, so including humor in your animated training videos make your training videos not only entertaining, but more memorable as well.
7. You get full creative control
Animated training videos let you control every aspect of the visuals within your videos. What the characters look like, all the colors within a scene, etc, making it easy to keep the look of your video on brand.
Plus animation can take your viewers to space, the bottom of the sea, or anywhere your imagination can think of, giving you flexibility that other videos simply can’t.
8. Keep viewer attention
Animated training videos keep your audience’s attention and educate at the same time. The combination of characters and on-screen text (used to drive home key messages) help keep your employees’ attention on the videos, while tapping into nostalgic feelings of cartoons many of us watched in our youth.
9. Simplify complicated concepts
Animation is commonly used in explainer and product videos because they simplify complicated concepts, making it easier for more people to easily understand.
Complicated training processes, like booking corporate travel for example, can be easier to understand by showing an animated character going through the process (even flying to the destination) via animation.
10. Enhance branding
Since animation gives you full control over the look and feel of your corporate training videos, you’re able to create characters that represent your employees, incorporate your brand colors, fonts, logos and other brand assets to keep your training videos on-brand and company culture strong.
*Bonus – Fast turnarounds
A two-three minute animation typically takes about 2-3 weeks to complete once the script is finalized. Turnaround times do depend on the number of edits needed and how quickly clients are to respond to our updates, but since there are no logistical requirements (booking a studio, shooting and re-shooting scenes, post-production, etc).
Conclusion
Animated training videos are an effective, efficient and fun way to break the monotony of typical corporate life. Regardless of your company size or training needs, the flexibility animation provides is unmatched and a powerful tool any industry can leverage to onboard and train your employees.
Questions? Contact us here to get started on your next animation training video.
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