Marketing your product with 3D animation

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marketing your product with 3 key strategies for selling your product with this amazing medium ANIMATE your VISION QUICK GUIDE to: 3D ANIMATION

description

If you are a product developer or marketer, you have just stumbled upon a lucrative, relatively untapped source of marketing power. 3D Animation is under-utilized. Not in Hollywood, where it thrills, amuses and captivates audiences in film productions that net billions of dollars a year. But in marketing campaigns for products of all kinds that, collectively, dwarf the revenues of those movie studios. Here's how to max out the full range of animation's capabilities. A few key strategies, executed well, can make a massive difference in sales for your company.

Transcript of Marketing your product with 3D animation

Page 1: Marketing your product with 3D animation

marketingyour productwith

3 key strategies forselling your productwith this amazingmedium

A N I M A T E y o u r V I S I O N

Q U I C K G U I D E t o :

3D ANIMATION

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Mike Efford Motion Design

(416) 763-729069 Skylark Road, TorontoOntario, Canada M6S 4M5

http://www.mike-efford-motion-design.com

Copyright © 2009All Rights Reserved

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© MIKE EFFORD MOTION DESIGN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

THIS GUIDE IS FREELY DISTRIBUTABLE, BUT MUST NOT BE SOLD, IN WHOLE OR IN PART.

NO PART OF THIS MANUAL SHALL BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, ORTRANSMITTED BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING,OR OTHERWISE, WITHOUT CREDITING THEAUTHOR.

WHERE THERE IS AMBIGUITY AS TO THE MEANING OF THIS COPYRIGHT STATEMENT, LIMITOF LIABILITY AND DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY THE MOST RESTRICTIVE LEGALLYPERMISSIBLE INTERPRETATION IS BINDING UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED EXPRESSLY ANDIN WRITING BYTHEAUTHOR.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY / DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THEAUTHOR HAS USED HIS BEST EFFORTSIN PREPARING THIS MANUAL, AND MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITHRESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK ANDSPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULARPURPOSE. THE ACCURACY AND COMPLETENESS OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINEDHEREIN AND THE OPINIONS STATED HEREIN ARE NOT GUARANTEED OR WARRANTED TOPRODUCE ANY PARTICULAR RESULTS, AND THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINEDHEREIN MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR EVERY INDIVIDUALPERSON OR COMPANY. THEAUTHORHAS USED HIS BEST EFFORTS TO REPRESENT ANY COMPANIES MENTIONED HEREIN IN APOSITIVE AND HONORABLE FASHION. THE AUTHOR RETAINS FULL OWNERSHIP OF ALLCOPYRIGHTS PERTAINING TOANY IMAGES USED IN THIS MANUAL.

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This guide has been created as a quick reference for productdevelopers who are looking for new ways to market their products.

Outlined here are 3 strategies for marketing a product with computeranimation that most marketers overlook, even many who are familiarwith the medium of 3D animation. These key strategies will help you getmore out of your animation marketing investment, and leverage thepower of this versatile medium to sell any kind of product.

If you would like more information on using Mike Efford Motion Designas your animation studio please contact me at:

Phone: 416-763-7290Online:E-mail:

Thank you,

Mike Efford

If you are a product developer or marketer, you have just stumbled upona lucrative, relatively untapped source of marketing power.

3D Animation is under-utilized. Not in Hollywood, where it thrills, amusesand captivates audiences in film productions that net billions of dollars ayear. But in marketing campaigns for products of all kinds that,collectively, dwarf the revenues of those movie studios.

Yet if 3D animation is so good at winning the hearts and minds of movieaudiences, doesn't it strike you as odd that more ad agencies andentrepreneurs don't take similar advantage of the power of this mediumto win in the marketplace?

Many do, of course. But even those more experienced with the mediumdo not typically max out the full range of animation's capabilities. A fewkey strategies, executed well, can make a massive difference in sales.

My mission in this briefing is to focus your attention on 3 key strategiesthat can make that difference.

http://www.mike-efford-motion-design.com/[email protected]

Introduction

...max out thefull range ofanimation’s

capabilities.

A few keystrategies,

executed well,can make a

massivedifference in

sales

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Strategy #1: Creative: Start with a better idea

The creativeconcept shouldanswer for you

the question“How can I use

animation to bestpromote and

demonstrate theproduct's features

and benefits?”

The creative possibilities with 3-D technical animation are vast, but notwell known. Most product developers and marketers will not have anymore than a handful of creative ideas for this medium in their repertoire.

The natural impulse is to treat 3D animation like photography.

And that's true of not only marketing executives but even creativepeople like producers and art directors. But it's not photography. It's amuch more versatile medium in actual fact, and the way products aretypically animated tends to only scratch the surface of what can bedone.

And that's a key advantage if you're willing to tap into some creativeideas for your 3D animation that bring out the best of the medium'scapabilities. Show your product off more creatively, (making better andmore creative use of the medium), and make more money.

So here's what to do: tap into some creative talent. Actively seek out thecreative input of someone familiar with 3D animation, and what it cando. Get a great idea, and have the animation built around it. It doesn'tmatter whether you engage a creative director, art director, a producer,or the animator on the project. A great idea is a great idea. But the pointhere is to have one…working hard to sell your product!

Just ask them to develop a creative concept for your animation, that tellsthe product story in a way that makes the most out of the medium. Haveit written up and / or sketched out roughly.

The creative concept should answer for you the question “How can I useanimation to best promote and demonstrate the product's features andbenefits?”

To jump start your brainstorming, on the next page is a list of onesentence creative strategies. These are short descriptions of what youwant your animation to do. You can copy and paste one or two of theseinto an e-mail request for a creative animation idea.

After that is a list of some sample ideas like those you might expect ofyour creative talent. You can add one of those as a sample of whatyou'd be interested in developing further with them.

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Creative strategies:

Show a product's inner workings

Depict a fairly mundane consumer product as graceful and magical

Enhance the perceived value of a deceptively simple - looking product

Show the importance of a very small part in a large, complex system

Demonstrate how liquid flows through a system or product

Emphasize the directional flow through a system

Take viewers on a tour of a project that has not yet been built

Show how massive a project or system is

Show each stage of a development, in sequence

Zoom into a microscopic detail of a component or product

Show several consecutive operations of a linear system or assembly line

Take a client on an exciting, "theme - park" like ride through a linear system

Diagram how a very complex group of systems work together

Show how a numerous set of mechanical parts fit together into theirrespective positions

Show how a complex assembly of articulated mechanical parts operates

Depict how an engineered structure will interface in a critical way with theearth

Give a visually boring system or part an exciting, stylized graphic look and feel

Show how a consumer or medical product interacts gently with human tissue

Show how a product or service spans a large geographical distance.

Explain and dramatize a particular kind of data

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Show how the whole assembly your company produces adds up to morethan the sum of its parts

Show internal detail that needs to be viewed in exacting scale andproportion

Create a high energy, "cutting - edge technology"impression

Dramatize the blazing speed of an electronic component'sprocessing power

Excite the imagination through a physically impossible fantasy scenebuilt around your product

Emphasize the sleek external appearance of a well designed, attractiveproduct

Give a soft, feminine feel to an otherwise clinical looking product

Emphasize the relationship between a brand's product and its logo

Now for some examples… Taking the first item in the bulleted list, “Reveal yourproduct's inner workings, and inner value”, here are a few specific 3D animationideas which serve this particular marketing strategy exceedingly well:

Cutaway/Reveal: portions of the exterior of the object becometransparent, revealing the hidden value / and or complexity inside.

Zoom - In Close Up: From an overall wide shot of the product or system,the animation zooms in rapidly through the outer shell to explore deepinside, sometimes in an extreme close - up.

Animated 2-D Diagram: For pure simplicity, a 2-D diagram rates high.The camera view is often static and the overall graphic look is clean andminimalist .

Mechanical Articulation Demonstration: An accurate 3D simulationshows how all the individual components function and move together,inside the product, or "under the hood"

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Cross - Sections: Most often a 2D animated view of an object, seen as ifit were sliced in half, to reveal its inner workings.

Fantasy: A mysterious, make - believe world is magically revealed insidea product, grabbing attention and exciting the viewer's imagination.

Bubble Fly - Up: A specialized form of zoom sequence. A circular diskfeaturing a magnified portion of an object zooms up to the viewer, whilethey continue to the full - size object in the background.

Fast forward now to the completion of your animation: the production process iscomplete (too big a subject to cover in a briefing like this), and the animationdemonstrates your product with clarity, impact and style.

Now what? Unless your animation is deliberately intended for a very privateaudience, for example during confidential, closed door presentations toinvestors, the objective is to expose it to as many eyes as possible. Soundspainfully obvious. But the majority of product animations, both industrial andconsumer, get limited exposure even if they are used on broadcast television.

Even after they are broadcast, they are typically put up onto the company'swebsite, perhaps uploaded to YouTube, and that's the end of the animation'spromotional reach.

In development is a website totally devoted to marketing with computer animation. It will be acomplete resource on how to market your product ideas using computer animation.

For example the above creative ideas (and 87 more) are each developed in full detail, along withan outsourcing guide, directory of animation studios, animation galleries, case study library, greatlyexpanded guide to promotional strategies and more.

If you would like to be notified when the site is live, click the following link:

Strategy #2: Online: Syndicate the animationall over the internet

***

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But the possibilities on the internet to syndicate that content far andwide are staggering, and increasing daily. There are sites andstrategies for taking a product animation and multiplying its onlineexposure many times over. Same animation, massively moreexposure.

Following are some of those sites and strategies:

All marketers know about YouTube, of course. Much less known area couple of techniques for getting your animation in front ofthousands more viewers, and boosting traffic to your sales page.

find existing videos on YouTube that are related to your product,and get lots of views. Next, look at the pale grey panel at the top ofthe page, just to the right of the video screen. Click on the link thatsays “more info”. You will see a list of keyword tags in blue. Copysome or all of those tags and apply them to YOUR uploadedproduct animation. That way, you can attract the same traffic thatthe high profile, popular video gets. Your animation is more likely toappear in the “related videos” sidebar at the right of the screen,next to the high traffic website. Visibility by association.

First, upload your animation to YouTube. Then, search for a relatedvideo or animation that has LOTS of views. You check for thenumber of views directly beneath the videos, and the thumbnailimages previewing them. So find a video that is on a closely relatedsubject to your animation. A couple of lines underneath the videoscreen is a link called “video response”. Click on it. Here you canchoose the animation you just uploaded. When you return to therelated, popular video that has the massive number of views, youwill see your video listed under Video Responses, along with athumbnail image of your animation. Result? Thousands more viewsof your product animation coming from the video response youposted. Related videos sending you tons of traffic.

YouTube:

“Tag” your animation:

Post a “video response”:

There are sitesand strategies fortaking a product

animation andmultiplying its

online exposuremany times over.

Same animation,massively more

exposure.

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Embed you video on other video sites:

Press Releases:

There's more to online video than YouTube, even though it is thedominant video portal on the web. Several other sites online allowyou to embed a video (and in your case, a product animation) in aweb page on their site. Videos and animations uploaded toYouTube have “embed code”, which you can paste into a page onthe following sites, to syndicate your product animation across theinternet:

The embed code is found on YouTube in the light grey panel in theupper left corner of each video page. Tip: The best way to copycode? Single click on the code, then hit <control A> (<option A> onthe Mac) to select all of it. Then copy and paste. That way you are100% sure you selected all of the code. It's easy to miss some codeif you drag to select.

The above sites offer a variety of places to take the same video youuploaded on YouTube, and have it working for you in multiplelocations, similar to the way that film distributors syndicate motionpictures around the world. Lots more views of your product.

Some of the web's most prominent press release sites now allowone to embed or link to a video in a press release. This can yieldextraordinary results, particularly when initially lunching a product.The news value of a product launch makes press releases with a

http://www.flixya.comhttp://www.spike.comhttp://www.instructables.comhttp://www.myspace.comhttp://www.uvouch.comhttp://www.magnify.net/sites/categorieshttp://www.ulinkx.com/http://www.myvidster.comhttp://www.gemzies.com/http://www.infectiousvideos.com/http://www.videosift.comhttp://www.vewgle.comhttp://www.tagged.comhttp://www.wonderhowto.com

...have itworking for you inmultiple locations,similar to the way

that film distributorssyndicate motion

pictures aroundthe world.

Lots more views ofyour product.

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video / animation a perfect fit. This is almost always a paid option,but well worth it. Even just the back-links to your website/sales pagecan be worth doing this.

This site is the most prominent of the press release sites thataccept video:

The site also has extensive tutorials for writing and developingpress releases, as well as some excellent examples that yourcompany can model your own release after.

Here is a press release site that submits releases to over 3,000 TVstations and shows. If your product is newsworthy, and you have avideo or 3D animation showing how it is special, this site could getyour product animation on broadcast television news.

Don't forget that you can include hyperlinks within the release textthat can take viewers back to your website and sales pages as well.So it can be an animation syndication double play: broadcasttelevision AND internet. Well worth looking into.

“Re-purposing” is a kind of digital buzz-word, meaning to takeinformation content and use it again in different media, usually inmodified form.

What does re-purposing mean when applied to 3-D animation?

It means that once an animation “scene” has been created, stillimages can be rendered out at higher resolution for use in printmedia and interactive applications.

PR Web:

E-Releases.com:

http://www.prweb.com/

http://www.ereleases.com/index.html

this site could getyour productanimation on

broadcasttelevision news.

Strategy#3: Re-purposing: Get the maximumout of the content

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Say you have a 3-D animation that shows a new exercise machine.The art director is planning to create an ad for a trade magazinewhich will show a similar view of the machine. Instead of hiring afreelance illustrator to create a new image for the ad, she asks theanimator to modify the scene somewhat, moving the camera for adifferent view, more appropriate for the ad. The animator sets it up,then renders out a high - resolution image and refines it inPhotoshop. It is then used in the trade magazine ad, and costs lessthan what an illustrator would charge for an original work.

One caveat with high resolution images output from3-D animation scenes is that they will almost always require someretouching, refinement and digital enhancement to be suitable forprint. What looks like plenty of detail in a moving animation is notenough for a print media illustration.

Plus the file must be converted to a different color format, CMYK,which is somewhat more limited in tone. A printer will take an RGBimage and convert it for you, but they don't like to, and may insistthat you prep it before you hand it off to them. And your art directorwill lose control over the color if the printer modifies the image. Bestto have the animator and art director collaborate. The point is thatthere is real additional work involved. Don't expect something fornothing.

So budget a little extra for this. (A freelance animator will not givethis away for free, because there are at least a couple of hoursinvolved to produce this, and a typical animator knows its value.)Even with the small amount of extra budget, however, you're wayahead. Your 3D animation can yield a large range of content, whichyou will likely need anyway for a complete product marketingcampaign.

Don't forget to tell the animator before starting the animationthat some print media renderings will be needed. That way, thewireframe models can be built with the right amount of detail.

Use the core animation to produce a variety of add-on pieces foryour communications strategy and stretch both yourcommunications budget, and the promotional reach of youranimation.

Full disclosure:

Tip:

Your 3D animationcan yield a largerange of content,

which you will likelyneed anyway for acomplete product

marketingcampaign.

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Ffollowing are some examples of the range of extra content that can be spun outof a 3D animation:

Print materials

Trade show graphics

Website pages

External articles and press releases

Powerpoint

PDF sales brochures

Illustrations For:

Broadcast and video ideas:

Modifying the animation scene files for different kinds of output:

Re- purpose broadcast animations for the web: smaller versions of theoriginal broadcast animation, suitable for websites or YouTube

Build the animation with pauses for editing: a video editor can stretch outthe animation by building in pauses and freeze frames

Same animation body with different intro's: build the animation with adistinctly separate front end. Then create additional intro's

Loop it: ask the animator to build all or even just part of the animation soit can repeat seamlessly over and over

Combine it into other forms of web video: the animation can be built intoan interactive Flash presentation, with clickable text menus, audio etc.

Break it up into segments: one long animation becomes a focused seriesof clips for insertion into interactive media or Powerpoints, webpages etc

Interactive “panoramas”: 3D animation software can output a series ofimages that panorama software can combine into a fully interactive tourof your product

Proprietary interactive product viewers like VRML in PDF documents

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In this guide we looked at 3 powerful strategies for marketing a productwith computer animation that most marketers overlook. These strategieswill help you make more money with your animation marketinginvestment, and leverage the power of this versatile medium to sell anykind of product. So don't take this medium for granted: use it to promoteyour product to the max!

E-mail me at and secure a booking for yourproduct animation. If my animation schedule does not allow me to takeon your project at the present time I will refer you to a directory ofprofessionals. In either case, you'll be on your way.

To be notified when the Marketing with Computer Animation site is live,click the following link:

Mike Efford turns the magic of computer animation into marketing powerfor his clients.

For more strategies for marketing with computer animation, plus demovideos and more, visit:

What's the next step?

About the author

[email protected]

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Conclusion:

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