The biggest part of any agency’s pollution footprint is the work they do for their clients — and the footprint of fossil fuel clients is massive.

While the fossil fuel industry is failing to pursue a clean energy transition, they are investing in marketing false solutions and greenwashing. This dilutes the impact of genuine effort to make change by other businesses. 

The scientific consensus is that fossil fuel advertising and PR are contributing to the climate emergency. One campaign with the wrong client can wipe out years of our agency’s sustainability gains. Shifting away from fossil fuel clients is an opportunity to lead our industry into a better future. 

Becoming a signatory to the Clean Creatives initiative shows our commitment to doing business the right way, and to a future free of fossil fuel pollution. You can learn more about the growing initiative here.

Saint-Gobain Off-site Solutions help house builders of all sizes to build better homes easier, quicker and more sustainably. We helped them catch the attention of prospective clients by telling their story differently. 

We turned an extensive offering into a memorable, engaging sales tool with the power of animation. The animation has helped drive traffic to Saint-Gobain OSS’s new website, and pushed their branding into an area they hadn’t explored before.

To tell their story, we started with the unlikely backdrop of the fairytale, The Three Little Pigs. While the third little pig achieved great things with their brick house, we imagined what they could’ve done with an off-site solution.

We love it when clients come to us with a bold idea for communicating their messaging. Collaborating with the Saint-Gobain team, we developed a unique narrative that clearly highlights all their team has to offer in 90-seconds. 

It was the first time that the Off-site Solutions team had commissioned an animation. So we set a style for the animation based on Saint-Gobain’s brand guidelines that is both attention-grabbing while staying true to their professional tone.

Get in touch to find out how we can help raise your brand awareness by telling your story with an unexpected narrative.

The advantages

I find I have to approach tasks quite differently to most people. This brings a fresh outlook and it drives me to solve problems in my way own. This helps the team as I tend to deviate away from the norm and come up with unique solutions for problems. My methods might not be the most conventional but somehow they work!

There’s also hyper-focusing on tasks. Once I’m honed in on a project, especially ones that I really enjoy, I work away without breaking concentration. This means I can get things done a little quicker than intended, which I’m sure can be helpful for scheduling and deadlines!

Bursts of ideas are another great advantage at work. I’ve started having to make notes on my phone of certain ideas that just come to me randomly in the day. This sort of ties in with the problem-solving I mentioned before, but I’ll always have a concept for something, even if it was meant for a previous project, it can be applied to a project in the present and is really helpful in some cases!

I’ve got so much enthusiasm to try so many different new things. I’m always intrigued by things I’ve seen on social media – cool techniques, courses, and tutorials. Recreating styles or attempting to create a motion piece in a way I haven’t before. This can be highly rewarding and the payoff can be great, especially when those ideas or methods get picked up and used for client projects.

The challenges and overcoming them

The big negative for me is that I know more about the negatives than I do the positives. It can be easier to pinpoint the negatives of having ADHD. As I said before I’m still learning a lot about my diagnosis. But, the brilliant thing is I can now understand my behaviours a lot better, which is very validating and reassuring.

As much as hyper-focus is a great asset at times, it’s also a bit of a hindrance. It’s great being able to finish projects fast, but at times it is to the detriment of my health and time. I can forget to take lunch, and often work a bit later than intended! I’m trying a lot more to get better at this, it’ll take time but I’m glad I’m more aware of it these days. I’m fortunate enough to have the support of the whole team, who communicate with me effectively and respectfully to ensure my health comes first on every occasion. It’s been a huge help having them support me since my diagnosis. Their approach has been massively beneficial on days that I’ve struggled.

I’m sure this one isn’t just exclusive to those who are neurodivergent, but getting feedback is tricky. Sensitivity rejection is a big thing for me and always has been, and I had no idea until my diagnosis that it was one of the symptoms of ADHD. I can find it quite difficult receiving feedback at times, it can often feel quite personal and really affect my mood for the rest of the day and sometimes my self-esteem. There are methods I’m working on to help with this, which are starting to come in handy.

Communication at times can be quite draining for me. I often speak/type faster than my brain can process or keep up with. I find it difficult at times to articulate what I want to say and I feel a rush to need to say a very specific thing and miss the point entirely at times. I get very conscious that this could offend my team members sometimes and come off as rude! Following on from this, concentration. The most typical of things I’d heard about ADHD before my diagnosis was trouble concentrating, and for me, it’s quite true. There are times when I can become very distracted by something my brain needs to engage with, almost like I need to scratch an itch.

Tips for people who have ADHD in creative roles

• At the start of the day, do something fun that stimulates your brain. I personally like to either draw, or find inspiration on Behance or Vimeo. It sets you up rather than just jumping straight into the day and gives you a boost.
• Do your hardest task second. If I have amends to a project, for example, I tend to leave the most complex and mind-boggling task until the end. I like to make a bit of room in my brain and declutter before tackling the more challenging tasks.
• Take a break. I’m still getting used to this myself but try and take ten minutes here and there just to have a conversation with somebody, get up, and stretch. This feeds back to the idea of hyper-focus getting in the way and burning yourself out.
• Don’t do too much at once. I find that having a massive to-do list can be super overwhelming and contribute to burnout. Be honest with your team about what’s realistic and try not to overpromise. Get better at saying “no”. Recently I’ve tried saying “no” more. You get very used to saying yes and trying to overpromise, and as much as that may be useful to getting work out on time, it’s not good for your mental health. Saying no is hard at first, but remember you’re the expert at what you do, you know what’s realistic and achievable.

I’m still learning a lot about ADHD and what it means, with the positives come advantages that benefit my process and the final outcome, and with the negatives come valuable lessons that help me figure out what it means to have ADHD and my limitations. Throughout all this, it’s been great to have the team as part of this journey. Constantly listening and learning with me as I go. As much as it may be a struggle at times, I really do feel as if being neurodivergent helps me see things in a distinct way, which I think is pretty awesome and worth celebrating! 

Business Waste offers a whole host of services to help organisations save money on waste collection, disposal and recycling. So they needed a quick and easy way to explain that.

Our two minute animation explains all the reasons potential customers should choose Business Waste. Encouraging them to get in touch and find out more about Business Waste.

To make the animation work as hard as possible for them, we planned and created lots of shorter content from the main film for different purposes. This included 30-second versions focussed on certain services for their social media and website. As well as 10-seconds cutdowns for social ads campaigns.

AGI Glassplant designs and manufactures premium scientific systems for the pharmaceutical industry. This animation introduces their new Pilot Controller, the next generation in reactor controllers.

The animation is aimed at professional scientists so there was no need to explain the science behind the technology. Instead, we focussed on all the ways the reactor controller will make their lives easier. We highlighted the unique benefits of the product, illustrating its key functionalities. The innovative design helps scientists scale up from lab to pilot scale simply and effectively. 

Our team developed visuals based on AGI’s “hand-cut stamp” style icons alongside their brand colours. This gives the film a premium and crafted aesthetic. AGI’s marketing team were so happy with the video and felt that the animation and development work undertaken with this project has really helped them not only get a great animation, but influence the visual direction of the AGI Glassplant brand.

We helped South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust increase brand awareness across their video communication with this set of animated brand assets and templates. Our graphics help the team bring consistency to all their video content no matter who is creating the video.

Following a striking new rebrand, SWLSTG asked us to develop assets that the internal team can use simply and effectively in their video communications. This included a logo animation, opening and closing graphics, transitions, as well as name straps for any filmed content. The team are now using the graphics across the web, social media and event films, helping the audience buy into the new brand.

This kind of thing is great when your team has some understanding of Adobe software, but just needs that added flourish an experienced animation studio can bring to the brand. We created customisable templates that were easy to work with, and suitable for even the novice After Effects user. And we’re delighted at how they’ve been received.

Working with an existing developed initial style and timeline of major milestones, we got to work building on the designs to develop an engaging animation that adds clarity and brings the history to life. Adding to the timeline’s iconography and character style, we illustrated eye-catching scenes from different eras with historical Easter eggs nestled in the scenes to look out for. These drive the messaging forward, while tying back to the web page and the static timeline.

Whenever we make an animation, the first step before grabbing the pencil or tablet is always a ‘visual column’ or list of visual suggestions to accompany the script. We then take this and start sketching ideas to get the flow right, in the form of a sketch storyboard. Here’s a small section of the animation with the sketches side-by-side.

It’s a really helpful step for both us and the client to make sure everything’s working as expected before heading into the complexities of designing and animating everything. It also helps with a tight deadline as it’s super easy to amend a sketch compared to when something’s fully animated.

Our designs use a limited colour palette so that the whole film has an obvious Adobe brand-feel throughout. It’s easy to forget the days when desks were stacked full of paperwork and filled with the whirr of printing machines. So we developed a series characters each using PDFs in unique locations to highlight all the ways PDF makes business effortless for everyone, everywhere.

The film lives on the Adobe website and was translated into French and German, celebrating the PDF’s big birthday with press and tech influencers across Europe.

Before we start talking about creative approaches or finalising budgets, it’s important we develop a strategy for your animation. This could be in the form of a simple half an hour kick-off meeting, all the way through to a workshop day to discuss the ins and outs of our process and how you can use animation across your marketing. Here’s why this important step sets us on the road to success.

Purpose

By taking a step back from the end outcome, we can focus on finding a solution to your communication challenges. It might be that animation isn’t what you need at all, or the type of animation is different to what you first imagined. We’ll find out what you want your audience to think, feel and do after watching. Then using our expertise in animation and telling stories, work together to devise the strategy to deliver this.

Budget

If you have a budget in mind, we’ll work together to decide how to get the most out of it. Is a social campaign most important or would a longer explainer be better for your audience? If you’re new to animation and you have no idea what budget to allocate, we can help you work this out based on what you need and what’s best for your business. An honest, open conversation makes sure we all have the same vision right from the start.

Brand consistency

We get to understand your bigger brand picture. Not only your tone of voice and brand personality but also the context around the film. We’ll consider where best for the film to play out as well as the other content you have surrounding this message, for example, a web page, a social campaign or an event. Through this, we make sure that what we deliver sits within your wider marketing plan. This also gives us an opportunity to see where different assets and animations could complement other parts of the campaign, for example developing a set of consistent character designs.

Delivering value

We’ll also make sure you get a greater return on investment. Planning at an early stage gives you more content that you can use for longer, across more channels. By looking at the bigger picture, we can deliver value, not just in the short term but long term too. This focus means we make sure your budget works as hard as possible for you and delivers results.

After we’ve discussed and put together the animation strategy, we can plot out the deliverables that best suit. Then we’ll develop a creative approach that will delight audiences and stakeholders alike. Ultimately we want to create something that delivers the aims and ambitions of your project, on budget – and make your life easier in the process. Whether you’ve never commissioned animation before, or you’re a seasoned pro, whatever stage you’re at in the process, get in touch to book a call and we can get started working out your strategy.