Top Explainer Videos of 2021 (Our Top 8)
As we wave goodbye to 2021, we cannot forget the wonderful and creative year we have had at Animation Explainers, and we think that the year’s top explainer videos deserve a special mention. Over the year, we delivered hundreds of top-quality videos for many brands in various industries – all of them uniquely different but equally effective.
Our team has reflected on these projects over the past year, and based on the overall style, brand messaging, and project experience, we have selected some of our favorite explainer videos from 2021.
Top 10 Explainer Videos of 2021
1. Fonolo:
The video begins: “When it comes to service, customers have high standards.” We wanted to explore this in the video style and enhance Fonolo’s claim that they are the number 1 name in callback solutions.
This is an excellent example of the magic formula of telling a story, showcasing the main characters, problem, solution, and impact. Vibrant colors and concise messaging make this a flawless explainer video with substantial impact.
Using split-screen, our animators emphasize the point that angry customers switching providers happens a lot more than you think, with a build-up of frustrated-looking, diversified characters in different settings filling the screen.
Zooming out to an animation spin influenced by famous landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Fonolo’s credibility is automatically registered in the viewer’s mind.
Having a character come into trouble is further acknowledged by our animator’s scene-setting: a rainy, stormy day. Animation can use a variety of visuals and audio to tie together an emotion or feeling in a distinctive way that other content mediums cannot achieve.
Once again, a stylized version of the User Interface shows the benefit of minimal setup time and flexibility across different devices. Diagrams representing other aspects of the solution via technology iconography representing the Cloud, Security, Phone systems, and more are littered throughout to enhance the viewers’ understanding of what is narrated in the VO.
By the end of the video, our story comes full circle with the original main character in crisis at the Golden Gate Bridge being assisted by a Fonolo agent. The sun is shining, and happy, smiling characters on either end of the service (the consumer and the administrator) emphasize the seamlessness of the customer service experience with Fonolo.
2.Deutsche Telekom:
Here is a video we worked on in the Telecommunications industry. Telecommunications can be a complex topic that is hard to understand if not marketed correctly, but an effort to digest.
Deutsche Telekom Global Business works to clear up any confusion when it comes to the overwhelming choice of phone vendors available. The Company will help you build an SD-WAN solution that’s perfect for your Company’s specific needs.
Depicting a diverse team of analysts, the video hones in on just how personalized the end-to-end service is tailored to each specific client. The Company also prides itself in working alongside some of the best technology vendors and industry experts in the world to develop the best possible solution: a benefit that is suavely highlighted throughout the explainer.
In just 90 seconds, the video covers the comprehensive nature of Deutsche Telekom and their ability to take care of everything for their clients: from security to the necessary underlay to unique overlays.
As with many of our other videos, our team at AE worked hard with Deutsche Telekom to ensure that their aesthetic was perfectly captured in the video, maintaining the pink color scheme throughout the video.
3. DC Risk:
The company provides clients with advice on creating customized solutions to realize their opportunities best and manage adversities.
DC Risk is a great client to represent some of the work we do in the Insurance Industry. While the above video is targeted on a B2B level, it breaks down concepts such as MERP in an easily-digestible way so that not only can the businesses who seek guidance from DC Risk understand their offering, but also their consumers.
This video is ranked among our faves because of its different character styles. DC Risk opted for less realism throughout their video, and we think the creativity paid off in their color choices. We depict the corporate setting, show the UI of DC Risk’s offering, as well as in a doctor’s setting scene. The video is a typical example of showing what is said and a highly successful step-by-step explainer of DC’s solution in its most simple form.
Typography enhances the main benefits of the solution, all the while tying in with the ongoing action of each scene.
Each character is dynamic and diverse. The video is a great way to exaggerate the creativity behind DC Risk Solutions and its personal and unique approach to each customer. While modern and innovative in style, the video is still classically represented.
Through tidy and sleek animation, the AE animation team combines DC Risk’s 15 years in the business with their ability to provide everchanging insurance solutions to their evolving client base.
Besides the on-point messaging, this explainer video stands out because of its vivid colors, diverse characters, various perspectives, and creative transitions.
4. DHL:
There isn’t much immediate excitement associated with the Logistics and Supply Chain Industry regarding advertising. Still, it’s something that most of us will need to learn more about, as we will likely use it at some point in our lives.
This video takes watchers by telling us what the company offers transparently. AE has an excellent formula for creating a step-by-step guide to a new product when clients have technical products. We can depict app user interfaces and use color schemes reflective of your brand’s color themes, incorporating logos dynamically to bring them to life.
Concision is critical here. It also shows how a shipping company can cater to your every need. The video shows customers using a computer monitor, Ipad, and laptop to emphasize the diversity of the product across platforms and ease of access.
By using map imagery, the animation depicts DHL’s international shipment status and its domestic platform. Once again, the video includes both genders and a mixture of races to adhere to diversity standards within society.
Simple iconography pops up throughout to emphasize key benefits and compliment the voiceover. Moving icons, dynamic characters, and intriguing transitions tell the story while staying true to the brand’s look and feel.
5. Banqsoft:
“Convenient, efficient and frictionless digital financial experiences” is said in the VO, so it has to be seen in the animation.
Projects in the financial industry often discuss topics of growth and expansion since the sector often brings us companies who have been in the game for several years and have had to adapt to the modern world of technological advancements. Banqsoft is a perfect example, having been established in 1994.
In the company’s own words, Banqsoft is one of the leading providers of financial software solutions for asset finance, digital banking, and credit management in the Nordics.
The company offers financial service providers the technology, insight, and expertise needed to keep up with tomorrow’s digital transformations. With this in mind, AE combined innovation, corporate space, and sophistication to align the video with Banqsoft’s existing brand voice.
Opening with a spinning globe scene that expands from the Nordics, (where Banqsoft is based) across the world emphasizes the company’s growth that sees them now manage over 150 installations for 100 financial providers with sales agents and customers in 30 countries across the globe.
Discussing a seamless organizational process with 360 customer perspective is highlighted with a functioning cog centered in the middle of the screen, surrounded cyclically with step by step guide to highlight the process by numbers.
The View 21 platform supports the entire customer origination process, enabling consumers to request, inquire, test, and finance a car directly from their mobile phone. The whole process is depicted dynamically via a consumer hero using the User Interface on his phone and enjoying a seamless experience. Introducing human car salesmen later in the scene reinforces the personability of the service and that it is not just a robotic process with little adaptation to the client’s bespoke needs.
Biometric technology is not so easily understood, hence the need for an animation to narrow down the concept into Layman’s terms for the target audience.
Banqsoft covers all grounds for vehicle purchasing, and the video compliments this perfectly, showcasing the solution in all of its glory in a matter of 90 seconds.
6. SafeSocial:
At AE, we love and get stuck into every project that comes our way. But there’s something about service offerings that give a little back to the community, encourage safety, contribute to eco-friendly practices or align with our own moral principles that sprinkle a little bit of pixie dust on our journey from start to finish. We always have a soft spot for projects that have a positive impact.
In today’s modern age, we all can see regularly the damage a social media controversy can cause brands and individuals.
The SafeSocial platform combines account credential protection (with the Company’s patented “Glovebox” technology) and network-layer intercept tech to monitor outbound social media posts proactively. With natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence, the solution specializes in identifying and blocking content that could potentially cause your brand’s reputation damage.
Use SafeSocial with your chat and social media tools to verify all content (both text and images) before it goes live. SafeSocial cleverly determines any potentially harmful content out of line with your company’s social media policies and ensures that it is flagged and blocked before it is published.
With a product so quick to counteract a progressively difficult challenge of today’s virtual world, we had to provide a video that would match the innovative tone of SafeSocial.
Using a case study of a young athlete, we progress through a simple story showing how the hero can benefit from using SafeSocial through every career stage.
With the character looking overwhelmed at the potential there may be to post content that may be damaging to his career, we populate the screen with social-media related comments associated with abuse and/or loss of following that would resonate with the audience’s own fears that the same could happen to them: that ‘the image they’ve spent a lifetime creating could be wiped out in a split second.’
SafeSocial is introduced as the safety solution to the problem: a protective guard that will guide you on your social media journey to benefit from social media while simultaneously avoiding any risks involved. The app covers you in a way that you would likely be unable to do so on your own.
The athlete is shown to have made a newspaper headlined “Athlete Wins Gold” to show that SafeSocial brings professionals into the spotlight for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.
The story continues following the hero. We are introduced to his Facebook page as the VO discusses SafeSocial’s benefit of doing thorough and historical background checks on the individual’s pages to ensure they have not posted any harmful content.
At AE, we like to bring hero-based stories full circle. People want people and resonate with character journeys. That’s why SafeSocial has made it to our top favorites. Of course, we absolutely love the concept as well. Great product, guys.
7. Harmonic Bionics:
Harmonic Bionics manufacture and sell an upper-extremity rehabilitation exoskeleton for movement disorders. Though the company’s robotic technologies are sometimes tricky to explain and illustrate briefly, the video takes the complex subject and makes it simple to understand.
The added features of multiple actions, creative transitions, and colorful, relatable characters make it a favorite amongst our team. We believe that this video truly epitomizes the capabilities of animation to transition complex topics into information that can be easily digested.
8. Brampton Bricks:
Brampton Bricks came to us with the question: how do we make bricks look good?
With an overall vision of a city and its landmarks, this explainer video tells a story within a story. The recognizable buildings and landscape bring this replica city to life with a dynamic animation style.
This video perfectly depicts our attention to detail in product demo videos and our ability to transform even those seemingly mundane, everyday products into shiny new items of desire. That’s not to say that Branston Bricks don’t sell themselves – they’re the best bricks we have ever come across. You catch our drift.
Get ready for some brick-inspired metaphors to be littered throughout.
The video was built from a foundation of having a story within a story. Showing the progression of Branston Brick’s business empire and 150 years of experience in our transition of Branston trucks working in scenes from rural to industrial, to technological, to city.
We present the Premier Executive Brick in all its glory. We offer comparative images to existing modular-sized bricks to dynamically show that while the Brampton Brick is larger, its components make it more lightweight. This means that masons can clad more square-footage in brick and in less time and more accessible transportation of the bricks due to a lighter load.
At this point, by panning back to the cityscape view, we show viewers the impact that Branston Bricks have had on our day-to-day lives without us even knowing: a true unsung hero of our city builds.
Labeling the Premier Executive Brick with areas in which it applies to compliance regulations and standards. Viewers can be sure that there is no difference between quality considerations of this new offering and those bricks already in circulation.
Branston Bricks were keen to emphasize their product’s capabilities in eco-friendly construction practices. AE builds a beautiful construction scene that shows how and why the Premier Executive Brick meets the environmental standards of our modern world.
Once again, we finish the video with a dynamic depiction of the company logo to inspire a clear call to action in viewers.
Wrapping Up
There you have it guys, that’s all from us for 2021. We hope this blog has showcased our animation and scriptwriting talent across an eclectic set of industries and inspired you to think about your new projects for this year.
Want to make the Animation Explainers’ list for 2022? Get in touch today to get started on your next video project!
