Tailor-made instead of off-the-shelf - that's how you score with your explainer video style.
Today, nothing works without differentiation - this is especially true for video styles.
Actually, the customer is king - but the explainer video world is stuck in a one-way street - increasingly everything looks the same (bad). There are reasons for this - and a few tips on how to do it better, for example with individual video style development.How? Find out here!
We observe it quite often - as soon as it comes to an explainer video, all design laws and corporate design specifications seem to be suspended. Why? Because it is often urgent or only about the "individual champion" of a department.
Design system? Not available. No time and often no budget either.
The use of existing styles and templates is then usually the most obvious, because it is the simplest and supposedly cheapest solution - unfortunately, however, quite short-term thought: Individuality & recognition value tend towards zero! The same figures and hands over and over again, such as in the Legetrick or whiteboard video - this is not well received by your employees, nor your customers.
If you forgo individuality and instead rely on prefabricated designs for your explainer video production, you won't really position yourself as an innovative, strong, consistent brand in your market and will quickly get lost in the crowd.
The result: Your brand has no recognition value on an immensely important channel such as YouTube and, if anything at all, irritation spreads in the minds of your target group under the motto "I've seen that somewhere before....". - In the worst case, the customer ends up with the competition.
Therefore, as a brand and a company, it is basically advisable to invest in the development of an individual video style and benefit from the many advantages. But first things first ...
What is actually behind an individual style finding?
This starts with an analysis of all competitors and their video styles - after all, what's the point of spending weeks developing something that then looks exactly like the competitors' videos? Further homework naturally includes worldwide, industry-specific trend scouting (how do you travel internationally in the industry) and, of course, a thorough analysis of the company's corporate design.
The findings of these analyses can then be used, for example, to select and develop a suitable illustration style for communicating the brand.
Ideally, this is consistent, yet flexible enough to work both online and offline in different contexts and media.
Of course, all possible individual requirements are taken into account - do you need figures? If so, how should they look? Rather adult & serious? Not too childish? Or trendy and a bit crazy like on Google & Co?
Icons - are there any already? Or do some need to be developed... and these are only 2 of some more assets like color, fonts, animation style.
At the end of the style finding process, the brand, the target group and the style in all its facets must form a coherent image in the external perception and create a recognition value.
The whole thing is then manifested by us in a style guide with which other agency partners and service providers can also work.
How to create your explainer video style
Advantages of your individual video style are obvious:
1. you clearly stand out from the soulless mass-produced goods
With an individual style finding you provide your brand with an unmistakable corporate presence and increase the recognition value of your brand.
By the way, illustration style is not the same as illustration style - even one or two small variations can bring about significant changes.
2. you can use all synergies
Through the consistency of your individual style, you shape your brand far beyond a video: GIFs, infographics, images for websites, brochures, trade show booths, presentations - with a consistent and truly unique design, you make a truly memorable impression on your target audience.
3. you are much more efficient on the road
Okay a style development is certainly not done in one day - especially in the analysis and conception phase a lot of time and effort is required. But once your style is found and defined in a style guide, you can produce your explainer videos and everything beyond much faster and more cost-effectively.
Why? With a defined style for your company, all further tedious correction loops and coordination processes are eliminated.
In addition, you can build up a database of your illustrations from project to project and store them in Canva, for example, to have an unlimited supply of figures, icons and scenes for your next ad, mail, landing page or presentation. You can see how this works in our case video for Lufthansa Cargo. For this client, we carried out the entire process of CI-compliant style development and implemented it in a wide variety of channels and countless explainer videos over the years.
Making of Lufthansa Cargo
Conclusion:
If you clearly want to differentiate yourself in the market and stand out, then you should definitely invest in a custom style statement!
This is the only way to help your company present its identity in a unique way and stand out from the competition.
So - here we go!
