Often overlooked, yet a staple in Jumbla’s 2D folio, is the humble explainer video. A necessity for most businesses deterred by cringey stock clips and clunky transitions, the 2D explainer is a visually engaging way to kickstart your next marketing project.

Want some more insight into how Jumbla’s 2D explainer expertise can work for you? We’ve wrangled Jumbla’s best creative brains to delve into the tips and tricks from the animation industry, as well as our 5 best animated explainer video examples to inspire your next script.

So, what Is An Explainer Video?

From big brands to startups, an explainer video is a short, snappy introduction to a business. Typically explaining a service, company narrative or as an educational tool, the explainer utilises engaging visuals and key phrases to consolidate the company’s key messaging into bite-sized, info-lite videos. Usually paired with sound effects, music and a VO narration, the explainer video can be published on a website, print, events and social media. A good video production studio works alongside the business to ensure what is being said is coupled with a clever creative approach to how it is being said.   

But why 2D?

We have long departed from the idea that animation is only for children’s cartoons to understand that two-dimensional animation can be incredibly captivating for adults in an already information rich, digital world. As a simplified visual tool for conveying complex thoughts, theories and instructions, 2D animation has become the go-to method for explainer videos. The creative approach and process is relatively easy to follow for most businesses, ensuring the client is able to track the production journey of their project. Alongside 2D lending itself well to explainer scripts and enabling greater client-to-production collaboration, it is also a much quicker and more cost-effective creative route than other techniques. This enables businesses to meet tight marketing deadlines and budgets with a high-quality, well-executed 2D explainer video in hand.   

Our Top 5 Picks

1. Exchange for Change

As part of the New South Wales government’s Return and Earn scheme, Jumbla was approached to help illustrate the initiative's process and benefits for our community. Utilising curious, colourful 2D characters alongside Return and Earn’s brand guidelines, the short 90 second animation is a concise and engaging introduction to recycling.

Since launching in December 2017, the scheme has collected over 2 billion containers through its 600+ return points and has helped reduce the volume of eligible drink container litter throughout the state.   

2. Investis Digital

The digital world is overwhelmed with content marketing so how does a business stand out among its competitors? Investis Digital redefines the way you communicate online with their construction of intelligent websites and digital experiences meeting your audience at the right time, the right place, with the right message. 

It was Jumbla’s challenge to visualise this in our 90” 2D animation in a meaningful and understandable way. Using a defined white background, a balanced use of both character animation and stylised iconography, Jumbla’s introduction to Investis Digital is both exciting and insightful. As a result, Investis Digital continues to grow and thrive within the content marketing sphere, allowing audiences to understand, appreciate and engage with their innovative Connected Content platform. 

3. Lyf

Lyf, pronounced “life”, is an app helping people overcome life’s difficulties by offering a platform to share and discover likeminded journeys. Their ethos of “you are not alone” is at the core of their company as shown on their website. And if you’re thinking the look and feel of the website is remarkably similar to the illustrative style we used for the video, you’d be right. They re-designed their website around our video. The team developed a strong, illustrative style guide for Lyf, which led our narrative for the 60 second animation. Coupled with powerful scriptwriting, complimentary sound effects and music and gradient imagery, our video succeeded in engaging, educating and enticing their audience to download the app.  

4. Enboarder

As a HR platform that promises not just paperless onboarding of new employees but also an engaging experience for them, Enboarder asked that their explainer video reflected the style and attitude of their company. Our messaging was clear. We wanted to offer glimpses into the product, without getting bogged down in the details, or complicated jargon. It would present features in simple, real-world examples to maintain engagement with the viewer and motivate further research into the product. Jumbla achieved this by making our colourful, boisterous characters the focus of the 90 second animation, paired with playful music and sound effects. The result? A light-hearted explainer that stands out amongst other HR data heavy marketing and acts as a celebration for new employees.

“It’s a bit quirky. We threw in some visual gags. The script took a bit of back and forth with the client, but they wanted something different too. And they were very happy with it.”, Executive Creative Director Callan Woolcock said.

5. UTS: Quantum Software

Pulling apart complex ideas and working written concepts into a format that’s nice to look at and also informs was our challenge on working on the University of Technology Sydney’s Quantum Software explainer. Producing a script that could use kinetic text to reinforce visuals was crucial to help us easily explain what quantum computing and software is to a mainstream audience. Paired with bold graphics and visually stimulating iconography, the video was layered with a tailored track by our in-house sound designer. 

“By no means an easy topic to grasp, your team managed to break down our messaging into visual cues that make the information memorable and understandable for mainstream audiences. Big props to the designers, and thanks to you for facilitating a seamless client experience for us on the marketing team”, Joanne Elliot, Marketing Office at UTS.

Conclusion

We’ve hopefully now equipped you with the knowledge and peaked your interest enough to start writing that next explainer Video. Need any more convincing that 2D is the way to go? Contact us and we’ll talk you through how our 2D experts can create something special for your next project.