Why Hire Small Animation Studios/Creators For Your Business

Let’s start with why we even need to have animated content in the first place, for our business events, sports, and even schools. It’s not just the internet space; when you walk on the streets, you would spot a moving banner to grab your attention, right? I’m not here to preach about attention span or why animation/cartoons are not only for kids. No, I’m here to give a simple solution as to why animation/art is the door to igniting an emotion, an emotion that leads to action.

People these days love to use words like “AI”, “attention span”, “leads”, and more words to make them look smart, and most importantly, to “help increase” your businesses with tips and tricks that will skyrocket everything.

Let’s answer this quickly: If you added animated content to whatever business you have, would this help you double or triple your sales? Yes and no. Let’s be real here, what is the goal? To quickly sell something, and after a week or two, to be forgotten, or? Why have people in the past 10 years trusted the so-called “influencers” rather than the big companies with established reputations? What’s the commonality between the influencers and animations, you would ask? Both of them make them feel emotion. Making them feel a part of something bigger, making them belong to a community.

So how do you make the audience feel something with these ”animations”, you would ask. One big mistake I see companies make is hiring a large studio to create something quickly, something that would feature the cooperative illustration style to “sell” or “promote” their next big business product to a wider audience. Yes, a picture paints a thousand words, no language barriers. But at what cost? The misconception among most is to make those animations as cheaply as possible, with the ugliest-looking cooperative style there is - Corporate Memphis. If you are asking yourself which style I’m referring to, just open your Facebook, YouTube, and whichever explainer-style section you would find; that’s the one - no expressions, no emotions, flat-looking design, fake and happy. With the wave of AI flooding the internet, I’m sure you have seen generated nonsense on the streets as well. And everything slowly starts to look the same - fake and happy with the same flat, non-expressive style.

If you own a company, or you are working for one, and you are reading this, you might think: Well, what’s wrong with that? Fake, happy, and everything looks the same.
But where is the emotion? Why would anyone, as a customer, want to get on board with whatever you are selling or making if you are just like everyone else?

I have nothing against those studios, nor the companies that are employing them for their cooperative projects. My appeal is to shift your focus to small studios and creators who can even do a better job from their own working spaces. Why? Well, we can all make the simple calculations; the small studio and creators don’t have to pay for 5 other employees to write the script, design the characters, and storyboards. This doesn’t mean they need to be underpaid. If a project costs 10K to be made, the small studio or creator will charge less, simply because they have lower expenses compared to the average big studio. If you are a smart, long-term thinking company, you would hire the small studio/creator monthly, so that you can get more done, and for a mutual budget that will fit both parties' needs.

I will give a short example with myself as an indie animator. One woman studio, in my case, I had the opportunity to work for a growing YouTube channel, where for 4 years from 700K subscribers, it grew to 2.35 M (still growing). I will not take all the credit for that; that’s not what it is. The hard work of the creator behind the channel, the research it went into, and the countless hours of editing are big ingredients. The illustration/animation style that we developed led to a recognizable image of the channel. It wasn’t cooperative, it wasn’t fake, it was imperfect, and it was real.  A lot of new channels now pop up on YouTube, and are trying to copy the style of the channel itself, from the animations to the writing style, and editing. 

What does this tell us? It tells us that people are more open towards imperfections and less interested in flat-looking, soulless art. So next time, when looking to hire a studio or a creator, please consider this. Look for something real, look for a creator who will bring some meaning to the message, or a product you are trying to sell. Let small studios or creators help you send your message to a wider audience and see how much you will benefit from this, as we all will. It’s no longer about consumerism; it’s about storytelling with love and care for the craft.