Potential clients often ask us for proof, or evidence, that a video will be successful for them.
As with most things you're designing or building, there's a lot of variables to consider. So the answer to the proof question is... it depends.
A lot of times "it depends" is a scape goat answer, but a lot of times it's the right answer. Which is why we say "it depends" a lot.
We then take the time to explain what it depends on. We get this question so often that we figured it'd be a good idea to write it all down. So here you go...
1) It depends on the nature of the product or service.
Is your product/service for consumers? Small businesses? Enterprises?
Each of these markets is different in size, shape, and velocity – and customers from these different markets have different ways of communicating and gaining trust.
While videos about enterprise products rarely go "viral", they do move a lot of lucrative deals forward at trade-shows. Champions inside companies also show them a lot to decision makers that your business development staff will never get a chance to pitch to.
So videos like this may not garner a viral amount of views, but they do perform an invaluable service -- they don't just tell your story to these enterprise influencers, they show it in an extremely efficient form.
On the other hand, consumer products with lower price points have a larger audience, and, normally, larger marketing budgets that compliment a video.
A viral video about a consumer product may have many views, but it's important to note that part of the reason it is viral is because it is a great video, and part of the reason is that it has additional marketing support (social media and otherwise) to help it gain momentum on it's way out into the world.
So sometimes large view counts can have more to do with factors outside the quality/clarity/content of the video itself.
2) How clear is your current marketing?
You might have a really great/useful/groundbreaking product or service, but how clearly are you able to communicate what it is?
In a recent TechCrunch article Michael Arrington writes,
...a company should be able to describe in simple terms what they do. Even if what they do is really technical and complicated.
Why? First so employees and investors can get on board and help the company get where it wants to go.
But it’s just as important that your potential customers know what you can do for them. And just because you offer a product to businesses or developers instead of everyday consumers doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep things simple.
You could have the best product of its kind on the market, but if a visitor has to dig around your website or piece together what problem you're solving for them, they'll move on to someone else.
The metrics question here is – Do these videos help convert more customers than what you had previously?
The answer to this question is an all caps YES 99.9% of the time.
3) It depends on how it's deployed.
How do you intend to use the video? How do you plan to measure its success?
If it lives on your homepage, how many conversions from visitors to customers means it is a success? Will it live on a site that currently has muddled non-visual communication? Did the previous page design have any video in it at all? Do you give users an easy way to share it? Will it be used in trade shows and pitches?
These will all impact the number and nature of views, and their corresponding business value.
Most often, because this is sensitive business data, the only metric we get from a client for a video like this is, "It's worked great and we'd do it again in a heartbeat."
Much of our lilipip work is used during biz dev cycles, and the success of these projects is not measured in terms of "viral videos." But that does not mean they don't deliver a great deal of business value.
For example, many web sites have way too much information on their main pages. So much so, that many visitors have to work very hard to understand what it is you can do for them and why they should give you money or attention.
The videos we create at lilipip are an exercise in distilling your message down to a clear and compelling visual story, so that when you deploy it simply or as part of a larger campaign, you are generating significantly more results than you would have without it.
3) It depends on things like timing and luck (so be wary of people who promise you a hit record).
The truth is, a lot of things go into creating a video with very high view counts – timing, natural demand, and serendipity are among these.
But none of those things matter if the content of the video is clear and compelling.
Oprah recently asked Jon Stewart what he thought about the impact of The Daily Show on culture, and Stewart's response hit the target dead on:
I try not to be too self examining of things I can't control. The thing I examine most on the show is the standard to which we execute, in terms of content.
We make great animated videos, and we can offer suggestions on how to give them the most exposure. But we can't absolutely control where it goes from there, and you should be wary of people who tell you they can.
For example, local tech meetup Ignite Seattle began in 2006. The earliest videos of Ignite presentations were low-fi and, to this day, have only 300-400 views each.
Yet within just four years these videos helped Ignite spread to 100+ cities worldwide. In this case it wasn't the number of people who viewed the content, but rather the right people who saw it at the right time and caught a vision to carry the event to their city.
So to answer the question...
...it still depends.
But as far as marketing and branding goes, a Lilipip animation is the most cost effective marketing value for your dollar.
And, I'm just gonna come out and say it – we can probably tell your story better than you can.
Monday, December 27, 2010 at 7:00AM 
Alex BudovskyAn illustrator and animator in one, Alex’s unique designs stand out among peers’ because of their distinct style. The Alex Budovsky look is edgy, whimsical, modern, and urban.
