The most noticeable shift in design recently has most certainly been the move towards digital and motion design – with brands harnessing the opportunity to create engaging content and tell another side of their brand story. We consider how we build brands with Digital in mind, setting the stage for new, creative Digital marketing and advertising.
We’ve all noticed the social media algorithms changing once again, filling home feeds with videos over the once dominant, static posts & photography. We have apps like TikTok to thank for this change, as a new generation emerges with an expert grasp on video content and editing, which has in turn, been adopted by popular social giants such as Instagram and Facebook to reach a wider range of consumers, and engage with consumers in a new way.
So what’s the fascination?
What’s appealing, is the opportunity to invite all the senses. The addition of sound and movement adds another dimension to branded content, and more ways to convey the mood and bring consumers further into the brand world. Motion adds a feeling of intrigue and depth, and the tapping and scrolling is the digital tactile, interactive experience, but there’s also an element of it being the new, and interesting thing to do. After over a decade of status updates, photo’s, even the more recent gifs and boomerangs that have given us an enticing, candid snapshot into the people and brands we admire, video is now what stands out – suddenly making us aware of how much more exiting video can be over static posts. It keeps our attention for longer, giving brands the platform to communicate more, and further invites us in behind the scenes.
Playing to digital strengths without losing your soul…
Animating, and bringing your brand to life through video should always be done in a way that enhances the brand message, and makes something pleasurable and meaningful to watch. Great video content doesn’t play to the addictive, click-bait style content that gives the medium a bad name. Brands of integrity use video to give their consumers more. One of our favourite examples of recent interactive campaigns, is Warner Music’s TikTok challenge: ‘Duet Roulette’, encouraging music fans to create their own verses and creatively engage with their favourite artists. The challenge is to replicate this positive engagement across different markets and audiences, in a way that’s true to the brand story, to offer consumers the chance to be a part of the brand.
What if you’re a brand that isn’t hot on Social Media?
Then you’re like us. There’s no pressure for every brand to be on all platforms, with cleverly devised marketing schemes, unless it sits comfortably with your brand as a whole. As a small, independent studio ourselves, we don’t have a strong reason to go after followers – instead, we use the presence we have to enhance our most important platform; our website, where we’re able to art direct every aspect, and use an eclectic mix of different media to create pace and intrigue.
In Conclusion,
There’s room in the digital world for creative, more sophisticated branded content that can help translate a brand experience online and communicate more of your brand’s reason to believe. This is particularly good news for independent and predominantly online brands, with less of a store presence, as it provides an opportunity to replicate the experience of the brand, remotely. However, as with all branding, it has to flow in a way that makes sense to the brand ethos, in addition to the classic touch-points, rather than in place of, as the interaction with a physical product won’t lose it’s significance. Video and motion design is a tool worth leveraging, but it’s important to remember that without quality of communication, and a strong sense of purpose, it quite quickly has the potential to date, and become white noise on an already saturated platform
