With 2D animation, anything is possible! A few pencil strokes, and a whole world springs up on the screen, self-evident, before the viewer’s eyes.
7 reasons to choose 2D animation
TO HELP YOU SELL
You know how essential marketing is to the growth and sustainability of your business… But do you truly measure the importance of video and animation in reaching your online marketing goals?
“The written word is dead. Long live video!”
We are living through a transition period in which the written word is being swept clean out of consumer habits. To be (barely) caricatural: “people don’t read any more!”. When a future customer researches the product they intend to buy, faced with the choice between a page of text and a YouTube video, they will not hesitate for a second: their click will go to the video thumbnail!
This new type of behaviour must imperatively be factored into your thinking about your communication. The question to ask is no longer “should I choose an ad in the daily press, a magazine, radio or TV?”, but “what type of video is best suited to my product and my audience?“.
2D animation is one of the forms your video communication can take. Ask yourself: “Can it be a good sales aid?” Today, the examples proving it number in the thousands!
In our own portfolio alone, you will find examples of several large accounts and start-ups for whom the results were spectacular. When the choice of graphic style and the writing of the script are conducted in harmony with the spirit of the brand, the impact of 2D animation is simply prodigious.
2D animation, in a marketing context, is serious business. Well designed, it has the power to increase your revenue. If your goal is to “sell”, this marketing tool should make something go “pop” in your mind!
TO INFORM YOUR AUDIENCE
If your goal is to inform your audience, you go through the same kind of thinking as the seller. You ask yourself: “what is the best way to get my message across to the people it is intended for?”.
This is the crucial moment to be realistic, and to rely on the available data. The public’s habits have been radically transformed over recent years. The consumption of video as a vehicle for information has literally exploded — even on mobile!
A small animated cartoon of one to a few minutes, if well designed, has a power of explanation and clarification vastly superior to text on a web page, however perfectly written.
And it makes perfect sense: a drawing can synthesise in a few strokes abstract notions that would be long and difficult to spell out in writing. Add the power of music, the richness of the voice-over, and the drive of a well-paced edit, and you get a cocktail that makes animation the all-category champion of communication.
In short, if your goal is for your message to be genuinely perceived by your audience, in its entirety — understood, absorbed and remembered — then 2D animation is the most effective tool at your disposal…
A selection of 3TOON productions in 2D animation
AN INFINITE RANGE OF STYLES AT YOUR DISPOSAL
If there is one field where you can say, without lying, that anything is possible, it is 2D animation!
No one in the world is freer than the scriptwriter of an animated cartoon. They can of course write a scene showing a couple chatting at a café terrace. And just as easily, nothing prevents them from writing another scene in which, say, Julius Caesar rides rodeo on the back of a whale… riding a unicycle across a suspension bridge held up by liquorice cables… Why not?
Yet another axis of freedom is the graphic style. Let us take the character of Julius Caesar again… For our client Prérequis, he was drawn with a clean line vaguely reminiscent of a bean. Crown him with laurels, and suddenly, the Roman emperor stands before our eyes!
But of course, there are hundreds of other ways Caesar could have been drawn! There is literally an infinite range of possible styles. They can naturally be grouped into broad families, and on that basis you can think about which one would best fit your communication.
Would a simple, stripped-down style do the trick? Are you looking for maximum comic impact? Would you prefer a more realistic treatment, even if stylised? Or does the “flat design” look and its clean lines appeal to you more?
Once again, anything is possible — but rest assured, don’t feel lost in this ocean of possibilities. We can act as your guide and help you choose the style that will best serve your communication goals.
The different graphic styles of the 3TOON studio for 2D animation
In 1999, the first games and animations were born on www.3toon.com. With them was born a very particular style, stylised to the extreme. That style emerged under the pressure of a technical constraint: the very low-bandwidth connections that were largely dominant at the time. The challenge was to produce animation with movement and sound, with practically no bandwidth available.
The result of this “impossible” constraint is a style that says “thank you” to Picasso for the eye floating in space. A style that baffled every animator who contributed to the productions: after several dozen episodes, every character had always been drawn in “three-quarter view”, whatever the staging required! Unique…
Although broadband long ago became the norm and the technical constraints tied to Flash have disappeared, the “classic” style is still in demand. But over the years the 3TOON studio has developed an immense palette of different graphic styles, of which you can get a glimpse in the mosaic above and the animated portfolio below. And of course, if you would like a brand-new style, entirely your own, that is just as possible!
A mammoth taxi, please!
The magic of animation is also that an artist can draw you a mammoth as easily as a chair or a table (where a live-action prop master would face some serious difficulties…).
Thus, for the cartoon produced for April Group, 3TOON could serenely include in the script a mammoth taxi crashing into a prehistoric hair salon, or a superhero called AssurMax flying through the air carrying a brand-new shop to hand over to a policyholder in distress.
The cartoon, entitled “What is insurance?“, was designed to explain to a young audience the purpose and mechanisms of the service insurance provides. By choosing 2D animation, April Group knew it had a mode of expression that would be welcomed enthusiastically by its audience — while granting 3TOON’s scriptwriters a freedom of imagination that could only benefit the quality of the story.
CONVEY A SERIOUS MESSAGE IN A PLAYFUL WAY
Your company’s image is associated with the keyword “SERIOUS”, and you fear that using 2D animation might compromise that image… You are right!
But the problem lies not so much in the animation itself, in the drawing, as in the way the script is written! It is the writing of the script that will ensure your image is preserved — and even strengthened.
A quick glance at our portfolio should be enough to reassure you: the great majority of our clients are very “serious” people.
Fortunately, being a top professional does not prevent you from having a sense of humour, or from taking a step back from your own trade. It is not by adopting a funeral-parlour tone that you will convince your audience of your brand’s seriousness.
On the contrary, by expressing yourself in a relaxed tone, with slightly offbeat humour, you assert that you are sure of yourself and of your brand — so sure that you can afford this light, smiling tone.
By taking the path of playful communication, you reassure your audience, who understand that you master your subject well enough to wield humour and distance. And you know that a reassured audience is far more likely to turn into customers…
TURN COMPLEX INFORMATION INTO A CLEAR IDEA
Some products or services can reach such levels of complexity that they require a particularly steep learning curve from your customers.
That is all the more true in certain sectors such as high tech, business intelligence or blockchain.
But you cannot afford to be obscure while your target is still at the prospect stage! Everything must be done so that the prospect immediately understands the direct benefit they will draw from using your product or service.
It is at this key stage that it is essential to have the clearest, most limpid message possible. When a prospect needs to be converted into a customer…
Brands have understood the effectiveness of graphics and animation in synthesising and clarifying complex ideas. It is not about talking down to the public but, on the contrary, about respecting them, by taking care to set out your ideas and proposals clearly and to present them in a way that goes straight to the point.
That is the great power of 2D animation, allied with an intelligent script: the ability to express abstract, complex concepts in a readable way.
SPARK LIKEABILITY AT FIRST SIGHT
No business without trust between buyer and seller… But if there is no history yet between you and your target — and therefore no trust yet — you can at least try to make your brand likeable. It will be the first step towards trust… and a lucrative business!
There is something magical about drawing: its power of immediate seduction! A character drawn with a few well-mastered strokes catches the eye and can create an emotional bond in a fraction of a second.
The fact that the character is a stylised figure rather than a realistic image creates a kind of bridge that connects the drawn character’s emotions directly to the viewer’s. In this way, communication can happen as simply and directly as between two children who have just met and decide, within the minute, to become friends…
It is a unique quality from a communication standpoint, entirely specific to 2D animation. It is up to you to exploit it to your benefit!
The JM Bruneau example
The office supplier JM Bruneau, the leader in its sector, has a wide customer base with which it communicates regularly through its newsletter.
Keen to build customer loyalty, Bruneau’s marketing management entrusted this loyalty mission to an animated series depicting the office life of a detective agency. After long reflection on the design of the atmosphere and characters, and the release of the first episodes, a satisfaction survey showed a very strong attachment of customers to the heroes of the Vénus Détectives agency.
The clean graphic style and the contrasted, distinctive, easily identifiable characters won viewers over from the very first episode.
Seeing the results of this approach, validated episode after episode, Bruneau commissioned 3TOON to produce 3 seasons, for a total of 25 episodes plus a wealth of bonus material (games, animated cards, making-ofs, and more)!
Yannick Noah playing his own role in the animated series “1 minute de pause”
Yannick Noah treated himself to the beginnings of an acting career by lending his voice to a cartoon character. He plays his own role, and opens the series by walking into the Vénus Détectives agency to submit a strange case that has been troubling him and preventing him from calmly continuing his tour.
2D ANIMATION IS SUITED TO EVERY SUBJECT
Can everything be said with a 2D animated cartoon? Short answer: yes!
Shouldn’t 2D animation be reserved primarily for certain types of subjects or products aimed at the young? It so happens that, yes, cartoons appeal to children.
But do not forget that the very first animated films were intended for informed adults! (We won’t go into detail — the information is available online…)
Animation appeals to the young because it possesses unique characteristics, which it would be a great shame not to exploit in a communication operation. These specific features are:
- A simplicity of form that makes the image easily readable and immediately accessible.
- A direct connection between the drawn emotions, reduced to their simplest expression, and the viewer’s emotions.
- An echo of the world of childhood, which lowers the viewer’s level of wariness and reserve compared with a realistic video.
- Instant likeability for a character drawn with a cute little face.
- Total freedom to visually represent everything that exists — and even everything that does not!
Once again we must insist on the decisive importance of the script. What you tell matters far more than how you tell it. As long as the script is written with your target’s motivations in mind, then yes, putting it into images as a 2D animated cartoon is absolutely relevant, whatever your sector of activity!
TESTED AND APPROVED BY CLIENTS AND THE PROFESSION
You can of course take our word for it… But perhaps it is even better to let our clients speak, on the one hand, and also the communication professionals who have judged our productions.
Below, a sample of video testimonials from our clients, a link to the page presenting the awards received by our studio, and also a sample of our 2D animation productions.
Going straight to the point
In a way, you could say that the more complex a brand’s offer, and the longer and more detailed its argument, the more useful and relevant the cartoon’s power of synthesis and clarification will be.
Case study 1: FastBooking
For FastBooking, the task was to present an online booking software offer to a clientele of hoteliers and tour operators. A new solution that upended their habits, with a long and complex argument…
What a relief for the sales team to have at their disposal 3 small cartoons that could instantly place prospects in the situation, in a funny, offbeat way, with obvious clarity!
Client testimonial: Jean-Louis Boss for FastBooking
In 2012, twelve years later, Jean-Louis Boss granted us an interview in which he shares his expectations at the time, and a full assessment of this exemplary viral marketing operation (Grand Prix de l’e-mail marketing 2001).
Case study 2: La Poste
For La Poste‘s subsidiary Maileva, here again prospects were being asked to radically change their habits! What could be harder for a sales team?
This time, it was with the help of 4 delightfully crazy — yet perfectly pedagogical — cartoons that customer evangelisation could begin.
A sign of exceptional longevity: 10 years after their production (!), these 4 cartoons were still part of the sales toolbox of the teams selling La Poste’s mixed postal-and-online mail, paperless archiving and electronic registered mail solutions.
Two case studies that illustrate the relevance and power of the animated cartoon in a demanding commercial context.
