Are you searching for a little explainer video inspiration for your service, company, or brand? If so, you are in luck.
This piece takes a trip down memory lane to explore ten of the best animated explainer video examples ever created. Before we proceed, however, let’s take a quick look at what explainer videos are and how they can come in handy.
Understanding animated explainer videos
Video marketing has emerged as one of best ways to promote your content and, over the past decade or so, explainer videos have become one of the most popular forms of video content. Countless companies are utilizing them for sales, marketing, training and more.
So what are explainer videos, you ask? Well, they are essentially short form videos for presenting or explaining something regarding a business, how a service works, and plenty of other things. These videos can cover your entire business or even a tiny aspect of your organization. You can even use them for explaining your brand’s timeline or introducing a new product or service that you are launching.
There are a variety of explainer video types out there and you can use any variant to make your business stand out. One popular current trend is to use 2D illustrations with catchy color combinations to tell a story. If you look a few years back, businesses were all over the animated whiteboard explainer trend. Motion graphics are also popular and here to stay. While there could be some changes in the design style and color scheme, it’s hard to go wrong with motion graphics.
No matter which type of style you use, animated explainers videos represent a powerful tool to help you tell your business’s story. So without further ado, let’s get to our handpicked list of some of the best animated explainer videos ever.
Best animated explainer videos ever: here’s our top 10
1. Gisteo
Gisteo was launched early in 2011, at a time when animated explainer videos were not very well known. Since there wasn’t yet a commonly accepted term for what are videos were, we created a catchy name to describe what we did. We combined the words “gist” and “video” to come up with Gisteo. Clever, huh?
But we needed more than a name. We knew we needed to create a unique, fun video to explainer what our business was all about. As the expression goes, we needed to “eat our own dog food“….so that’s exactly what we did. We wanted to create of our own cartoon spokesperson to pitch the benefits our business and the “Gisteo Guy” was born.
Honestly, we didn’t expect this video to become as popular as it did, but we’ll take it! The Gisteo Guy helped make Gisteo a profitable company within 2 weeks of its release. Remember folks, animated videos are all about setting the tone and that is precisely what our original explainer video did for our own company. It featured just a single simple cartoon character who pitched the gist of our business. Our little dude helped people understand what they can expect from Gisteo while bringing a smile to their faces. It wasn’t fancy, but it was effective. Yes, sometimes it really can be that simple!
2. Mint
When Mint was getting started, they wanted a way to show how their product could easily impact and change how people manage their finances.
They decided to go with an animated explainer to efficiently and clearly demonstrate how the software worked. This trailblazing explainer video inspired many other companies to create similar videos and ultimately boosted the entire explainer video industry. Mint was later acquired by Intuit so kudos to them for creating both a great product and great video!
3. Slack
This animated explainer video does a tremendous job of showing the pressures of a regular work day and how it is a common issue faced by almost everyone.
What’s most impressive about this video is that it demonstrated how Slack’s products can come in handy in relatable situations without being too pushy or promotional. The animation is enticing, creative, and bright, hooking the audience from the very first second.
4. Spotify
When Spotify “landed in the U.S,” they released a great intro video to promote their music app. It’s short, fun and super upbeat. Best of all, it has no voiceover, just a great soundtrack entertaining visuals!
5. Crazy Egg
The style Crazy Egg used in this animated explainer video was definitely unique back when it was originally created. It has just one character that interacts with various elements to visualize the voiceover. Unlike most videos, the video doesn’t move as much as you may expect, but it’s enough to keep you hooked. The character used in this piece has a funny vintage look, keeping things interesting and entertaining at the same time.
At the time it was produced, Neil Patel discussed how much this video helped drive revenue for his company and the impressive results along should be a good enough reason to include this it among the best animated explainer videos ever!
6. Groupon
This pioneering video helped served as a launchpad to make Groupon the billion dollar company it is today. The movement and visuals keep you hooked throughout while helping people understand the overall Groupon concept. It’s an example of the power of explainer videos and a lot of people routinely cited the unique “Groupon style” for video production after this one hit the market.
7. Headspace
Headspace is an English-American company and app, specialized in meditation. Launched a few years ago, the company used adorable 2D animated video with playful humor to explain the Headspace app. The transitions from scene to scene are smooth and easy to follow, with a soothing voiceover that explains the functionality of the app.
7. Dropbox
Dropbox attributed most of its early success to a simple explainer video launched a decade ago to describe their service. The video reportedly was a key factor in getting further investment and it helped Dropbox acquire its first 10 million customers. It’s not fancy but it does a great job at explaining Dropbox’s value proposition. Due to its incredible success, it definitely deserves a place among the best animated explainer videos ever.
8. Hipmunk
Hipmunk was great little startup which mission is to make booking flights a painless experience. While it looks like they’re finally shutting down, this video helped launched Hipmunk into the mainstream. Like others in this list, it’s simple yet highly effective at explaining the basics. Plus, it helped its producer (Grumo Media) get lots of follow up work after its overwhelmingly positive reception online.
9. Hubspot
HubSpot is a marketing software company that sells a variety of marketing tools to businesses.
It would take a bit of time to explain everything HubSpot does with text or an ordinary video. But when HubSpot used an explainer video, they were able to quickly explain what the platform does in less than 180 seconds. Despite being voracious video marketers today, this original animated video is still one of their most-viewed videos on YouTube.
10. Ahrefs
As far as cute yet entertaining animated videos go, Ahrefs has one of the finest. It’s not quite as old as some of the examples above but it is still over five years old and we think it’s ageing quite well!
Conclusion
While you will find a slew of other impressive animated videos out there, the ones mentioned in this piece are arguably the best animated explainer videos ever due to their historical importance in establishing the entire explainer video genre.
For more information about Gisteo’s animated explainer video services, contact us now.
