Every product you use today has a fascinating origin story behind it.
More often than not, that origin story culminates into a grand product launch.
Something that lets your industry know that you have the next best thing to offer.
But just as a successful product exists, it’s also true that in a majority of cases, product launches can turn out to be a dud in the water.
And that’s a challenge that got me curious.
So in this blog, I provide an elaborative solution to taking your product launches to the next level using animated video production.
Image Source: C2FO
As I mentioned before, most product launches don’t work.
According to the latest statistics from G2, the failure rate for new product launches sits at a staggering 95%.
Which begs the question: Are they really worth the effort?
I would argue that they are.
And to make a product launch effective, it needs to be backed by two very important things:
This is where video animation can give you the means to build a strategy and execute on it swiftly.
Let’s discuss that in more detail next
Source: Vidico
The biggest challenge when it comes to launching a new product is product demonstration.
And if your launch is virtual, as many have become these days, this can be an even bigger challenge.
That’s where animated video production can give you the medium to bring your new products to life.
It can turn the intangible aspects of your offering into something that’s easy to visualize and understand.
As an example, take a look at our product demo video we made for 3Flow
It uses intricate 3D animation to demonstrate their airflow systems and its B2B applications.
What I’m trying to say here is that when used for your product launches, animation can make your offering feel like the real thing.
Even when your customers don’t have a way to experience it physically.
On the surface, product launch videos can feel one-dimensional.
In reality, videos related to product launches can exist in several forms.
Each with its own unique purpose.
At its core, however, it can be summed up in these 3 major types;
A product reveal video is exactly what it sounds like.
It’s a video that unveils your new product offering for the world to see.
Whenever I think about a product reveal, it takes me back to that time when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007.
Back then, the world of technology was aloof to such elaborate product reveals and launches.
But as the years have gone by, brands have developed a knack for product reveals, be it physically or virtually.
Regardless of whether you’re launching a consumer product or an enterprise product, you need to understand that it’s not about introducing flashy features or technical specifications.
It’s about communicating utility from the end-user’s perspective.
That’s where product reveal videos really come in handy.
As an example, take a look at this video from Digital Ocean.
With help from Vidico, Digital Ocean takes the elaborate reveal of their App Platform and turns it into a mini-movie.
Where their audience discovers new things about their product in every frame.
This product reveal video was so successful that, according to Vidico’s case study, this garnered more than 3.7 million views on YouTube with a 70% completion rate.
And it was also able to lower their CPA numbers significantly, which is a major challenge in B2B SaaS.
Having a product/service offering is typical for any business
But most of them forget that their brand is also one of their products.
And when established the right way, it can turn you into a lead magnet that attracts potential customers.
That’s what brand launch videos promise.
They take your developing or established brand image to new heights.
But here’s where things get interesting.
When we’re talking about brand launches, we can think of this in two extremes:
Let’s understand both with an example.
On the new brand launch side of things, I have this example from Capchase.
It’s a brand in the Fintech space offering flexible payment solutions for SaaS companies.
Using this brand launch video, they bring their charm to dominate their target market.
This video has almost 150k views on YouTube and has proven to be a lead magnet for their business as well.
Enabling them to expand their customer base to more than 5000 SaaS brands and skyrocket their valuation to more than $668M as reported by Pitchbook.
On the rebranding side of things, look at this example from Visa
As a heavy hitter in the financial services sector for more than 60 years now, Visa knows a thing or two about brand positioning.
But when your brand needs an update, it needs to be done carefully, no matter how well established your brand is.
And it’s no surprise Visa used video animation to pull this off.
It brings with it an immaculate combination of kinetic typography and visual storytelling.
Taking you and their audience on a journey of brand evolution while maintaining their roots.
If launching a new B2B product means getting your foot in the door…
Then giving a proper introduction to that product is the equivalent of entering the room.
Product introduction is like giving a brief outline of your new product, compel your audience to take the next step and try things out for themselves.
Here, again, product introduction videos can come in two forms:
Let’s understand each with an example.
This is a product introduction video from Yext, a B2B that provides digital presence management solutions for businesses.
They recently launched their new social media management tool and chose a short commercial video to announce it.
In just a span of 31 seconds, they manage to paint a fairly vivid picture of what their tool can do when it comes to managing social media performance and drive conversion efforts in the process.
This is an example of one of those quick product introduction videos that cuts the fluff and gets straight to the point.
On the other side of the coin, I have this example from Zendesk.
As a leading provider of customer relationship management on the enterprise level, their SaaS offering is quite extensive and can confuse interested businesses looking to use it for the first time.
Zendesk’s solution to this is creating a series of highly specialized product introduction videos and posting them as video content on their YouTube channel.
Which is quite a nice video marketing strategy if you ask me but I’m digressing.
This product video takes an elaborate approach to explaining the basics of Zendesk’s platform and how to use it if you’re starting out.
It combines a mix of screencast animation, motion graphics, and a few mixed-media elements to answer the quintessential question, “What is Zendesk” and grab their audience’s attention.
And the use of a product video to do that is not only genius but highly effective as well.
Now that you know which type of product launch video will best suit your needs,
It’s time to put the wheels in motion.
In this section, I’ll give you a step-by-step process for creating an animated video for your product launch.
Let’s begin with…
Starting production on your product launch video without a plan is not a good idea.
It’s the equivalent of going in blind with no control over how things turn out or how you want them to turn out.
So the first step in your animated video production is to properly plan out your product video in detail.
Here’s some things you need to prioritize:
You might think that a video script for a product launch video seems unnecessary.
But it’s actually more important than you think.
You only have a limited window to talk about your new product.
A script helps you stay on track and avoid covering irrelevant information that has nothing to do with your launch.
Here’s how you can get started:
Since we’re talking about animated product launch videos here,
The production process, as compared to live-action counterparts, is a bit more lean.
But it does have a lot of moving parts which need a method to navigate through the chaos.
Here’s how you can do that:
Once you have all the pieces of the puzzle, let’s put everything together.
This is the step where your final product launch video takes shape as per your vision.
Let’s look at the specifics as follows:
Now it’s time to share your product launch video to the world and build up that hype.
While many brands make these videos for a single use case, mostly related to a standalone launch event.
Animation unlocks the versatility to use these videos in many different ways in your marketing efforts.
Let’s look at a few ways here:
Congratulations!
Your new product launch video is now ready.
But here’s the deal: It might have taken you some time to get here.
And if this is your first time, it might have taken you significantly longer.
So what’s the problem here?
When it comes to product launches, things are on a tight schedule and budget.
And in many cases, delays or over expenditure are not an option.
Which is why I recommend hiring an external video production company to handle steps 1 through 4 that we saw above.
They’ll help you be more efficient with your animated video production, helping you save precious time and budget in the process.
We can help you out here. Contact us here and let’s have a chat.
But if you’re looking for more options, check out our picks for the 20 Best Video Production Companies next.
We’re in the home stretch now.
In this section, we’ll look at 15 amazing product launch video examples and what makes them so unique.
Starting with…
Spark is the Telegraph Group’s brand-new creative commercial arm.
This new department combines their creative brains with data to offer their clients even more insightful ideas for their advertising campaigns.
Weareseventeen worked with them to develop a whole new look for the brand.
The primary focus was to depict the idea of artistic creativity and data merging together to create something new and amazing - Spark.
The video used stunning 3D animation, and abstract but unambiguous graphics, and told a deceptively simple-looking story.
The embodiment of warm and colorful artistry swirls and tentacles around like a living being.
It then comes into contact with a mass of sci-fi-looking, jagged lines, numbers, and data points representing the cold logic of data and intelligence.
The two forms merge and explode, revealing the eponymous title.
It’s a simple enough concept that is depicted so beautifully that it’s quite stunning and memorable.
It says a lot while saying nothing at all.
As part of a new brand launch, Silver created a beautifully crafted animation to help Odesma spread the word about their organization.
Through breathtakingly minimalist infographics and typography animation, their powerful message hits home with the audience and makes a lasting impression.
Minimalist doesn’t mean simple or easy.
Sometimes it’s harder to know what to cut out, rather than what to use.
This animated brand launch video is a good example of that concept, and it uses it to great effect.
The thing about SaaS is that it’s complex and hard to visualize.
And what’s hard to visualize is even harder to adopt in your business and in your marketing strategy.
With this hurdle in mind, Align reached out to us for an animated SaaS video that would drive adoption rates for their enterprise IT solutions.
We took this opportunity to craft a visual experience that was entertaining as well as effective.
Using a medley of geometric shapes and motion graphics animation helped unfold Align’s offering frame-by-frame.
The use of animation turned this into a presentation you don’t often see in product launch videos.
That’s the beauty of animation.
Canva Enterprise allows design teams to create on-brand marketing and internal content, with a customizable and integrated design tool.
Never Sit Still was commissioned to create a short animated brand awareness video for the launch event of Canva Enterprise in NYC.
Here's what they came up with.
The visual narrative depicts the creative's journey from chaos to order when using Canva.
It’s delightfully abstract and fun, saying a lot without really saying anything at all.
Ultimately, it really captures the soul and emotion of creativity, rather than trying to dazzle the viewer with a list of technical specifications and key features of the platform/software.
With the launch of a new visual language, typeface, and robust set of tools, IBM has taken the ambitious step of not only refreshing their brand but reinventing their entire approach to design.
Its foundation is a philosophy that informs all of their decisions - a way of thinking about design, and the responsibility it holds.
Buck partnered with the IBM Design team to develop this series of brand launch animations that live within the Design Language repository.
Written, designed and animated with rigorous adherence to their system, each short illustrates and embodies the IBM Design Language, functioning as a bridge between principle and practice.
Explaining such complex, technical topics is a challenge, even with the aid of animation.
But Buck skilfully breaks it all down and makes it look so simple and easy in just a minute.
Giant Ant worked with the amazing MailChimp to help them launch their newest feature: Facebook Ads.
So put on some 3D glasses (it won't help), kick back (it will help), and enjoy this audio-visual feast backed by the sweet audio tones of the wizards at Antfood. Ant party!
As usual, Giant Ant knocked this one out of the park.
A fun mix of cartoony and abstract graphics leads the viewer through a journey through their world, explaining how Mailchimp can solve a ton of marketing-related hassles.
It really meets the audience where they live, and shows them a far more streamlined, simple, and fun way to get things done.
Giant Ant has also helped Mailchimp become a beacon of inspiration for their users by producing amazing inspirational videos for them.
Grommet is the place to shop unique and ingenious products from inventors, entrepreneurs and small businesses.
As their tagline goes, they “sell lots of things, boring isn’t one of them.”
Buff Motion was approached by the in-house creative team at Grommet to produce an animated promo to launch their new brand identity.
The aim was to develop a piece of content that would promote the platform, widen Grommet’s audience and introduce their fresh new look.
When your business is selling such a dazzlingly wide range of interesting eclectic stuff, you might as well embrace it proudly.
This suitably quirky and fun animated video reflects their culture, teasing the audience’s interest while explaining who they are and what they do.
What does it mean to live well and how are we really living as a nation?
To address these questions, Sainsbury's asked more than 8,000 people how they’re living – from their relationships with family and friends to how much sleep they're getting.
Nice and Serious worked with Sainsbury's to create a brand identity and an animation video to launch the Living Well Index.
Good animated brand storytelling doesn’t just tell you a story, it draws you into it immersively.
The secret is making that intrinsically human connection, to speak to the heart and gut, so to speak.
This animated video is cartoony and stylized, yet it focuses on the heart of the issue: people, individually and collectively.
Battle was engaged to launch the Jordan Jack brand and this nifty video animation.
The challenge lay in maintaining a degree of polish that builds trust in those making such an important purchase decision, while making the brand far more accessible than traditional jewelers.
Their strategy for this brand video was to embrace simplicity.
They did this using friendly, everyday language, beautiful but linear illustrations, and a minimal color palette, as well as smart and seamless transitions to convey fluidity and ease.
It’s an example of how an animated brand video can look and feel deceptively “simple” but they say a whole lot using very little.
And it stands out enough to remain memorable and appealing in the viewer’s mind long after a single watch.
Very True Story partnered with eero to make their first animated brand video for the company to launch eero for Service Providers.
Working with their live-action partner & VTS pal, NearFuture, they developed a style and concept for the video that highlights the end-user experience.
Using the existing eero brand as a jumping-off point, they took a deep dive into animation.
Applying a wild mix of different animation techniques (cel animation with Ae and a little 3D trickery) to make everything come together in a fluid and intentional way works perfectly here.
It’s a pretty immersive experience of lush visuals and a tasty color palette, all delivering a story about how their home network systems can really amplify your entire lifestyle and transform your home.
Daniel Danielsson created this amazing animated brand launch video for a fictional watch company named NORR as a case study project.
The imaginary / non-existent brand builds smartwatches designed for, inspired by, and with materials from Scandinavian nature.
The brand launch video presents a sleek timepiece, specifically designed for the outdoorsy type: Advanced navigation, biometrics, emergency connectivity– and above all, durability.
The case is carved from a single piece of reinforced volcanic rock, hand-picked by native Icelanders, and each timepiece is numbered and engraved with the exact time and location of the eruption that created its materials.
Since the fictional brand focuses so heavily on nature and volcanic materials, the animation begins with the depiction of a volcanic eruption and slowly builds to eventually reveal a watch forged from those primal elements.
The level of skill and detail and storytelling in this animated branded video type is pretty amazing, especially considering this is a brand that does not even exist!
Kroger—the largest supermarket chain in the US—and DDB New York approached Hornet to aid in the launch of a massive company rebrand.
The goal was to solidify their branding and tell a more cohesive and inclusive story about their commitment to food that’s “Fresh for Everyone.”
To do so, they needed to create a look and feel that wasn't just ownable and original, but also emblematic of the wide diversity of Kroger's millions of customers.
The 30-second animated TV spot is contagiously fun.
We especially love how the gorgeous animation gives way to live-action footage to really showcase the freshness of their many foods and ingredients. Yum!
Shopify wanted to celebrate the launch of their new mobile payment system: the Shopify Chip and Swipe Reader.
Tendril got to create a bright, fun, photoreal 3D online video to demonstrate the variety of transactions and scenarios in which the new Reader could be used.
In storytelling, it’s best to show, not tell, and Tendril took that rule to heart here.
The animated video really shows off how convenient and useful the new reader can be.
At the end of the day, there's a moment when the sun and the sea meet, and the sky is filled with a beautiful array of colors — if you’ve ever experienced this, you know it's magical.
Solimar, The Trade Desk's newest product, was born out of this moment, and it was the inspiration for the entire look of both the product and the event launching it.
Ordinary Folk produced a series of illustrations to event graphics, from a product UI sizzle reel to looping animations, from a 15-second trailer to a full product launch video, and all in a system that would work for every screen resolution.
It’s a kaleidoscope of bright colors and pastel textures that’s a real treat to the eye.
Love at first slide - when PITCH approached SEHSUCHT to collaborate on creating a beautiful animation video to highlight their official product launch.
They carved out our geometric shapes and threw some bold colors into the mix.
The result is a mesmerizing journey that, once and for all, answers the question of how to pitch an idea.
Beautiful, lush graphics and slick animation brings it all to life and keeps your eyes glued to the screen.
Videos are a great way to introduce your product.
But the only thing that limits them is their duration.
So the best way to go about this is by sticking to the basics.
Focus on communicating your product’s salient features and be as specific as possible.
Turn your product’s USP into a quick conversation that will engage people more efficiently.
This approach will help you make every second of your product launch count.
Yes they can. But the caveat is that it depends on the type of product you’re unveiling.
If it’s a physical product, an explainer video may not be that useful and in this case, a 3D product animation makes more sense.
But if you’re launching a virtual product like software, a SaaS explainer video can work wonders here.
Again, it depends on the type of product you’re launching so proceed accordingly.
Again, it depends.
Mostly on what you’re covering in your video and how you’re covering it.
To give you a better idea, I would recommend checking out our blog on animated video production costs after this.
Mind you, we have curated that blog for explainer videos but the insights come directly from real client videos to give you an accurate overview of production budgets.
I hope this guide has given you everything you need to take your product launch to the next level.
We looked at the various types of videos associated with product launches and how video animation can give you an edge in each case.
We also looked, step-by-step, at how you can make your animated product videos from the ground up.
Finally ending our exploration with a rundown of 15 amazing examples from several brands that cracked the code with video animation.
My advice is simple.
Every product launch is your opportunity to stand out in your industry.
It’s the literal embodiment of the common saying: “first impressions last”
So it’s crucial that your efforts, from choosing video animation to picking a launch strategy, turns your brand into the next best thing.
But most importantly, keeps you there.
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