18 Best Animated Explainer Videos of All-Time
When it comes to simplifying complex concepts, animated explainer videos are the ideal choice for any brand. If you want to demonstrate your products or introduce new features, explainer videos are a great solution. For a polished animated explainer video, look up an animation or motion graphics studio in Singapore to help you get started! Better yet, consider working with a Singapore sound recording studio to perfect your voiceovers and audio for a polished final product.
Why you should animate your explainer videos
Explainer videos are all about educating audiences. What better way to educate than through entertainment? Animation makes your content visually engaging and way better at retaining attention. It also injects fun and personality into your messaging, giving viewers a reason to stick around (and remember you)!
A great marketing campaign needs creativity, and animation gives you exactly that. Just look at the success of the Disney+ marketing campaign. It’s a perfect example of how animation can supercharge storytelling.
Since there are so many different types of animation, there’s plenty of room to experiment. Most ads use motion graphics to compress complex information into sleek, eye-catching visuals. It’s also perfect for showing off new product features!
For inspiration, we’ve compiled a list of the top animated ads. You can also start by learning from these 18 best animated explainer videos of all time!
List of 18 Best Animated Explainer Videos:
- Chipotle: A future begins
- Grab: GrabpayMY rewards
- PS5: Play like never before
- Microsoft: Introducing Windows 11
- Global Health Media Project: The story of Coronavirus
- Gojek: New on Gojek
- Monday.com: Work without limits
- Ecojustice Canada: A Tale of Two Valleys
- Duolingo: Duolingo Adventures
- Adobe Creative Cloud: What’s it all about?
- Discord: How Discord Works in 148,000 Milliseconds or Less
- Cainiao: How Cainiao Logistics Delivers
- Lazada: Lazada Sponsored Solutions
- Plastic Pollution Coalition: Love Letter To Plastic
- Metomic: Protect Your Company’s Sensitive Data with Metomic
- Webflow: A New Era of No Code
- RIFS Potsdam: Let’s talk about soil
- Apple: App tracking transparency
1. Chipotle: A future begins
Easily a favourite, Chipotle’s touching tribute to farmers uses a stop-motion style to tell a story about sustainable farming. The lush backdrop was hand-sculpted to create a realistic farmland filled with trees and greenery. The immersive landscape immediately makes you fantasise about a cosy life on a farm, while also evoking nostalgia about the ‘simpler times’, tugging at the viewer’s heartstrings. The soft vocals from Kacey Musgraves were also a great tearjerker. It was clearly made with love, and it’s impossible to stop watching.
2. Grab: GrabpayMY rewards
Reward systems are nothing new, so how do you present this information in a fresh, attention-grabbing way? Grab’s answer was anime! This flashy and popular style of animation is eye-catching, and is great at delivering humour. Grab’s glossy animations and funny character transformations would capture anyone’s attention. You wouldn’t typically associate a corporation with this over-the-top style, but that makes it all the more fun!
3. PS5: Play like never before
With their stunning 3D rendering, PlayStation shows off the PS5 with crisp sharpness. All of the PS5’s new features were highlighted in this explainer video. The thrumming beats in the background also creates an immersive experience, drawing viewers in. Already known for their video consoles, PlayStation’s powerful presentation of the PS5 amplified the hype and anticipation surrounding it.
4. Microsoft: Introducing Windows 11
In just under three minutes, Microsoft’s explainer video managed to demonstrate all the key features of Windows 11. Their use of motion graphics paired with minimal but impactful text let viewers envision the ways they could use Windows 11. It not only educates viewers on the new changes introduced in Windows 11 – it also lets viewers catch a glimpse of its potential!
5. Global Health Media Project: The story of Coronavirus
Global Health Media Project did a great job at explaining the virus through their animated video. The 2D animation depicted how the Coronavirus spreads and affects its victims. With a subtle palette, it paints a sombre and tragic picture. However, colour slowly seeps in when the video explains how viewers can combat Coronavirus and recover from it. These subtle visual cues truly sell it as one of the best animated explainer videos in 2021 & 2022!
6. Gojek: New on Gojek
Say hello to Gojek’s new features! Gojek’s animated video is buzzing with excitement as a speedy montage introduces you to each new feature on Gojek. From premium cars to massive cars that can fit your entire family tree, Gojek meets all your needs. The snappy music adds a zesty touch and complements the vibrant animation. Fun fact, our team at CraveFX made this video 😉.
7. Monday.com: Work without limits
This video is packed with information, but the colourful animation goes a long way in making these hard facts palatable to viewers. The voice over enthusiastically guides you through how Monday.com works. This is then paired with smooth graphics that are brightly coloured and captivating. What might have been a dry and dense explainer video is transformed into one that’s actually fun to watch!
8. Ecojustice Canada: A Tale of Two Valleys
This animated explainer by Ecojustice Canada employs charming 2D animation to create a distinct cut-out style to shine a light on something serious: Canada’s absence of a constitutional right to a healthy environment.
The video contrasts Canada’s legal gaps with countries like Brazil, where environmental rights are protected in the constitution. Visually, the animated video is replete with thoughtful details. Take the use of black, which is used here to subvert traditional symbolism to represent the positive forces fighting for justice, reflecting the colour of lawyers’ robes.
At its heart, this is not just an explainer video about Ecojustice’s work. It’s a call to action urging viewers to get involved and support the movement for environmental legal reform.
9. Duolingo: Duolingo Adventures
To launch their new feature “Duolingo Adventures”, Duolingo’s animated explainer illustrates how users can engage in real-life conversations within the app via a progression of relatable scenarios. The video is vibrant and energetic, employing everyday environments (cafes, shops, uncomfortable social encounters) to present the different scenarios within the app.
At its centre is their well-known green mascot, which brings a playful charm to the explainer. Paired with upbeat music and seamless transitions, the animation effectively shows how the app equips users to handle real-world conversations in a foreign language by giving them a fun and experimental space to build confidence.
10. Adobe Creative Cloud: What’s it all about?
Adobe Creative Cloud’s video keeps things sleek and simple with 2D animation. The animated Adobe icons and clean-cut characters walk viewers through real-world examples step by step. The video works well because it keeps things focused without clutter, just clear, memorable visuals. Adobe Creative Cloud is represented with a literal cloud to show how software and files are stored in a central repository.
Through clever animation, Adobe’s explainer helped users visualise what always-on access and updates actually looked like, which was crucial since cloud computing was still a new concept for audiences back in 2013.
11. Discord: How Discord Works in 148,000 Milliseconds or Less
In 148,000 milliseconds, Discord makes it easy for large audiences to get to know the capabilities of the platform. Using simple 2D animation, the style is casual and welcoming, which was perfect for showing the various capabilities of Discord as a communications platform.
While originally designed for gamers, the video shows how versatile the app is, highlighting the ease of creating servers and setting up channels for different topics within the app. Whether it’s for a club or an intimate gathering, Discord can be customized for any group setting.
12. Cainiao: How Cainiao Logistics Delivers
Cainiao’s video brings logistics and e-commerce to life with storybook style 3D visuals.
As Alibaba’s logistics arm, the video helps users visualise how Cainiao connects the dots between sellers, warehouses and delivery routes. For 2016 audiences, the 3D animation transformed an overwhelming logistics structure into something clear and easy to follow.
13. Lazada: Lazada Sponsored Solutions
With easy-to-follow 2D visuals and neat icons, Lazada’s animation is a visual guide to how their marketing solutions help sellers grow visibility, traffic, and sales within the platform. Taking the hassle out of marketing, Lazada helps sellers build their brand so they can focus on what they do best.
14. Plastic Pollution Coalition: Love Letter To Plastic
Framed as a “breakup” story, Love Letter to Plastic reimagines our reliance on single-use plastics as a toxic relationship. The narrator’s romantic voiceover and whimsical 2D visuals contrast sharply with the underlying reality: plastic-filled landscapes and trash that call for the urgency of change.
By blending personal reflection with a broader environmental call to action, this explainer video transforms quitting single-use plastics into an empowering, collective choice.
15. Metomic: Protect Your Company’s Sensitive Data with Metomic
Metomic’s explainer video shows how the platform assists businesses in protecting sensitive data. While data security is a tricky subject, the video’s 2D animation guides viewers along the various notions of data security.
Through fluid transitions, the video clearly outlines how the platform safeguards company data through automated sensitive data discovery, real-time threat detection, and immediate alerts across tools like Slack, Google Drive, and Salesforce. Using sophisticated algorithms, Metomic makes it easier for organisations to enforce security policies and prevent data leaks before they happen.
16. Webflow: A New Era of No Code
Webflow’s explainer video utilises sleek 2D animation, marked by clean lines, vibrant colours and fluid transitions. As an animated explainer, the video mirrors the elegance and precision of Webflow’s no-code tools, reinforcing the idea that complex digital design can be both accessible and powerful.
The video introduces Webflow’s expanded no-code capabilities, allowing users to build fully custom websites and dynamic experiences such as user logins, e-commerce and automated workflows without writing a single line of code. The contemporary visual style brings these features to life in a way that feels intuitive and empowering.
17. RIFS Potsdam: Let’s talk about soil
“Let’s Talk About Soil” uses a 3D animation technique with a claymation aesthetic. Environments are rounded, vibrant, and slightly stylized, creating a soft, haptic, and welcoming visual atmosphere.
In a series of smooth cuts, the film demonstrates how crucial soil is, how it takes thousands of years to develop yet can be destroyed within a matter of years by deforestation, poor agriculture, erosion, and urban development. While bleak, the video is a rally for the sustainable use of soil so we can preserve it for future generations.
18. Apple: App tracking transparency
Precise and powerful, Apple is the king of minimalism. Following their signature style, this explainer video uses minimalistic visuals and an informative, pleasing voiceover to deliver a strong message. Perfectly synced with the narration, the visual cues were easy for viewers to follow along. This fluid animation style also makes for an incredibly satisfying watch. Always sleek and fresh, Apple’s videos are a testament to their genius marketing.
What makes a good explainer video?
Ultimately, we think it boils down to these key traits:
- Be compelling. As attention spans continue to shrink, it’s even more important to know how to captivate your viewers. Animation may be compelling, but a good story and a well-executed edit are key ingredients for your video’s success.
- Be clear and succinct. In a matter of minutes, your viewers should be able to understand what your explainer video is about. Be selective with what you include, time is precious!
- Have a good story. It doesn’t need to be elaborate. But it definitely needs to be one that strikes a chord with your audience.
Interested in producing your own explainer video? Get in touch with us if you’d like a video that’s clear, engaging, and tailored to your brand.
