5 examples of tech firms killing it with brand-driven animated storytelling 

Humans are hard-wired for storytelling – it’s in our DNA.

Our ancestors gathered around the fire to tell tales that captured their imaginations and sparked their emotions. And let’s be honest, if they were around today, they’d probably be binge-watching Netflix like the rest of us. But the point remains: stories have the power to connect us, inspire us, and leave a lasting impression.

In the world of business, storytelling is just as important. Yet, so many brands focus on dry and cold sales messages instead of brand-building through storytelling. This is a missed opportunity to connect with customers and forge a meaningful bond.

They lead to better understanding, trust and loyalty.

There are rules though. Your target audience isn’t stupid. They can smell a lie from behind their devices and so authenticity is vital. Making up fanciful and outlandish origin stories are likely to get you in trouble. Lying about who’s endorsed your brand or claiming everything is produced in one country and in fact, it’s outsourced to another, will end in embarrassment, and in the worst cases, a court case. 

Successful businesses are often born from frustration, pain, and the desire to make things better. These stories are powerful and yet, so many brands fail to tell them.

They usually have a clear ‘why’ behind what they do. 

There’s a powerful story right there. 

 What’s yours?

That’s why we’re sharing 5 examples of tech brands that are absolutely killing it with brand-driven animated storytelling. So sit back, relax, and let’s dive into the world of storytelling in tech.

1. Slack

Most people by now are familiar with Slack. At its core, it’s a software business. A tech platform built to help teams become more productive and connect easily in a partially remote working world. 

They’re trusted by large companies worldwide, from Uber, to Airbnb to banks and big pharma. But do we really care how the platform works, how it’s been built and the complexities behind the algorithms?

What we really care about, as a consumer is; what is the product or service going to do for me? How is it going to help me? How will it make me feel?

Slack is tuned it to this and it’s probably why their strap-line is ‘made for people, built for productivity.’ 

See what they did there? They led with people. 

They’re making their customers the hero of their story.

Slack has long been a fan of animated content and you’ll find huge amounts of video content on their Youtube channel, but this explainer video is a beauty and a perfect example of brand-driver storytelling.

In this expertly crafted animation, we are transported into a world where we follow a lead character through his chaotic daily life. We can relate to his struggles and feel his pain and frustrations. Slack isn’t telling us the details of how this works, it’s showing us how it can make our life easier, more productive and stress-free.

2. Headspace

Headspace has truly embraced animated video and has created tonnes of content to inform, educate and entertain their audience. 

With an incredibly strong and memorable brand, they’ve capitalised on their illustrations and brought them to life in their videos.  

You might be thinking, but Headspace isn’t a tech company, it’s a health and wellbeing business. In truth, it’s both. Their brand is based on a subscription model and an app.

In essence, this is an explainer video to help users understand how it works, but you’ll notice that they’ve still brought their consumers into the narrative, by showing how the app can help them. The delightfully calm voiceover artist tells us ‘It’s here whenever you need it.

The narrative sounds personalised, even though this will be seen by millions of people, giving you plenty of options. 

Even app walkthrough explainer videos can be emotive, engaging, and beautiful to view and leave your audience feeling something for your brand.

3. Pendo

Another fantastic example of a brand leading with people. 

Pendo believes that building great software is hard, but getting people to use it should be simple. Granted, this is a complex offering, it’s software that analyses a business’s software. 

I know, brain-melting as we speak. 

But the likelihood is, that we’re not the target demographic. They’re speaking specifically to product teams who are focused on user experience. 

So it can be complex because the people watching know what it all means. 

A great lesson here is knowing who your audience is before you start. 

It’s about focussing on their pain points, which in this case is gathering information and data on how their customers are using their systems, which is a struggle. Pendo is there to ease that struggle, make things easier and quicker to understand and leave them focussed on making changes and improvements to make their software better. 

And they show and tell their customers how.

4. Spline

“Every designer deserves a world with dimension”

Spline offers a web-based space to design and collaborate in 3D and they do an incredible job at telling this story. 

Characters are a great way to connect with an audience. They humanise a problem. 3D modelling is a complicated art and their audience will resonate, but visualising this struggle through a story is not only a great way to point out the problem they’re solving, it’s also a clever way to build camaraderie and community. 

Spline continues to use the character by demonstrating how easy the software is to use in real time. The character takes a 2D cube, transforms it into a 3D cube, and then into a smartphone.

Viewers are encouraged to relate to the steep learning curve of traditional 3D software, by literally visualising the uphill struggle, followed by the peace and satisfaction that comes from what Spline offers. 

And the icing on the cake, starting the story with… ‘Once upon a time’.

5. Eero

It’s a tale as old as time – B2B companies focus on their direct clients, forgetting about the end consumer in their marketing efforts. Sure, they may showcase the benefits of their product or service to the service provider, but they fail to highlight the value it brings to the end user.

This approach is problematic because it leaves the end consumer out in the cold, without the necessary tools to fully appreciate and utilize the product. It’s like buying a fancy new blender and never figuring out how to make a smoothie – what’s the point?

But fear not, dear readers, there are companies out there that get it right. Take Eero by Amazon, for example. They start off by highlighting the benefits of their WIFI service to the service provider, but then seamlessly transition to how it can improve the lives of their customers. Genius.

And they don’t just pay lip service to the end user – they make them the stars of the show. By placing the end consumer as the characters within the story, Eero reinforces the benefits that the service provider can offer to those customers.

It’s a world-class wifi experience, indeed. And let’s be real, it’s not too shabby to look at either.

The benefits

There are many, many benefits to utilising animated videos in your marketing strategy but we’ll leave you with 5 key takeaways;

Animated explainer videos can be a highly effective way to communicate your brand’s message, increase engagement, and improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Interested in learning more? Book a free call with our expert team today.

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