Mediafreaks has released a free e-book titled 'True Case Studies of How Animation Can Help Grow a Business'. The purpose of the e-book is to educate business establishments on the benefits of using 3D animation to market and grow their businesses and also using character licensing to increase the salability of their products and services.

Topics covered in the book include:

• Case studies of how various companies are employing animation to market their services and products


• The power of animation in today's marketing game and its applications


• Debunking the myth that 'animation is expensive' and mitigating the cost of production


• Looking for the right animation company to work with


• Why animated commercials rock and 'live' adverts suck


• How to communicate effectively with an animation production company to get the most out of them


• Using character licensing to boost the sales of your products and services


• Some character licensing ideas

About Mediafreaks

Set up in 2003, Mediafreaks has grown from a 2-men team to a 30 odd-men strong team today.

Mediafreaks's portfolio includes projects for prolific clients such as Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, Voom HD, Darlow Smithson Productions, Natural History New Zealand, Bang Production, Beach House Pictures, Pilot Pen, Hewlett Packard and Energizer to name a few.

Mediafreaks has produced over a hundred projects to date - including animated advertisements, documentary computer graphics, medical animation, architectural visualization and numerous other broadcasting cum marketing projects.

Through sharing the information and case studies in the e-book, we hope that business establishments could benefit through learning how some other companies are already employing 3D animation and character licensing actively and enjoying healthy growth. Interested business owners or marketing professionals are invited to download the free 3D animation services marketing e-book here.

In my work I have many clients ask me what animation can do for them. I always tell them - loads.

Animation is really one of the most versatile sales presentation tools available to a business and if harnessed well, can mean an increase in sales for any product and business.

Many marketing managers did not learn the power of using new media in school. The lecturers were usually more familiar with traditional marketing media like live action TV commercials and paper adverts because when they were younger, that's all they had. But nowadays, there's the internet as a new media. Internet marketing is a whole different knowledge all by itself and that's not being taught in most schools. And most certainly most marketing courses do not teach how to use multimedia and animation to help sell a product or a service. So they rely on boring powerpoints and paper hand-outs. Yawn.

If animation is used effectively, it can help demonstrate a product's or engineered system's full potential, far beyond what a powerpoint or hand-outs can achieve. I've listed some of the benefits and applications below:

Benefits

- Demonstrate how your product works without having to set it up or lug it about
- Create an upmarket feel of the product or service and justify a premium price
- Make a product or service more attractive, sexier and dynamic looking, and enhance its perceived value
- Give a boring system a visual boost through exciting graphics and animation
- Dramatize boring information and data
- Make anything look cutting edge and state of the art
- Create something that can never be achieved through live shots

Applications

- Show how your product or service can be applied to a problem
- Show the internal components of a complex product
- Bring the client on a tour of a facility or property using 3D animation
- Show how a product interacts with its customers
- Show how a very complex system works through animated sequences and diagrams
- Showcase a product or facility that has not yet been built
- Show several consecutive operations of a system or assembly line
- Show various negative scenarios that can be resolved through the use of your product or service
- Zoom into a microscopic detail of a product or its component
- Show each stage of a planned development clearly
- Show how something like a medical device interacts with the human body

If you are looking for a way to enhance the presentation for your product or service, using animation is the way to go.

Smart companies are using it to secure major contracts in their fields, and you should too. If any of the above ideas sound exactly like what you could use, you can visit Mediafreaks for some ideas on how to use animation as a powerful marketing tool to turbo-charge your presentations and marketing campaigns.

There is an increasing trend for businesses to gravitate towards using animation for their commercials, and for good reason too. This article discusses some of the more popular reasons why business marketers are doing that and will hopefully give you an insight. 1. 'Live' adverts require actors and models, and they can be hard to schedule if they are popular. This can be a problem if they fall ill, go out of the country or busy with other assignments.

2. Popular actors and models can be expensive to hire. Some of their managers may charge according to where the advert is shown, meaning an extra fee per location.

3. Using actors and models may have many red-tapes due to consideration for their image and many concepts may not be fulfillable.

4. Actors and models are susceptible to popularity upheavals. Artistes are just humans prone to scandals and scandals can easily cause a wane in their popularity.

5. Animated adverts using animated characters on the other hand do not suffer from the above issues live TV adverts face. As far as a make-belief character is concerned, its popularity can be timeless. Just look at Fido Dido!

6. With animation, the sky's the limit! Animation can achieve the most bizarre special effects and be presented in the most abstract environments without any worry about the logistics and possibilities. You can go as far as Mars or as high as the Heavens! You can make an entire city black out or make the Sun go nova! Go wild with animation!

7. Animation can be combined with live environments or actors to create a really cool commercial. But a 'live-shot' commercial is just that - a plain old boring commercial! Just look at all the cool mobile hand phone ads combining special effects with live elements!

8. Contrary to popular belief, animated adverts are usually cheaper to produce than 'live' adverts if you deal directly with the animation house and not through a third party like an advert agency. Many times, advert agencies sub-contract the work to animation companies and utilize their concepts instead of coming up with their own, charging a fat fee for their 'trouble'! As you can imagine, the charges of an animation company alone without the intervention of an advert agency can be much lower, and in many cases more affordable than a 'live' advert.

If you would like to know more about 3D animation and what it can do for you, please visit Mediafreaks. You can also receive a free report regarding 3D animation services for marketing purposes there.

I need to be perfectly honest here. Clients can be painfully ignorant sometimes. Although they are effectively our 'employers', they are also the most difficult bunch to contend with. Very often animation companies get ludricous requests from clients that go in the lines of:

'Oh, I need to do a 30 minute animation for my daughter's wedding. It would be such a lovely present for her, don't you think? By the way, I am thinking of Finding Nemo quality wise and my budget's $500. That should be enough right?'

Ermmm...not quite...While we appreciate your love for your daughter, Finding Nemo cost almost 100 million dollars to produce. It was about 90 minutes in length and that means 30 minutes would cost about 66 million dollars. We are missing quite a few zeros here.

Usually at this point the animation company who receives such a request goes silent for a beat, and then animated guffaws (pun intended!) arise, followed by the tone of a disengaged phone.

Actually all of us are guilty of walking at least once into a restaurant or a store thinking of getting a bite or purchasing a pair of shoes for less than what these establishments are asking for. The only difference between these scenarios and that of querying a 3D service is that we get to see the price tags and we never have to stipulate our budgets, thus avoiding the embarrassment.

The point I am trying to make is - while clients need to be more realistic about their budgets when asking for a 3D service, animation companies also need to be more forgiving towards them as unrealistic expectations usually stem from ignorance. I insist that my company patiently explains the procedure of producing an animated clip.

Even if the client walks away in a daze and says she can never afford the service, at least another person in the world gets educated about the workings of an animation production. As the world becomes more knowledgeable in the way of animation production, I believe that ludricous requests such as the above example would become less common.

This is why I am so proud of my company. Mediafreaks's mandate is such that we will never scoff at a client's request and that we will always find the best solution to her needs. So for the record, Mediafreaks is not one of those animation companies who dislikes its clients.

We love all our clients and we will endeavour to educate them on animation production so that they know how to set realistic budgets and goals for their animation projects.

In Mediafreaks, we have garnered a wealth of experience working with numerous clients on hundreds of projects. As such, we have distilled our experience into a delivery pipeline that has worked very well for our clients and ourselves. This pipeline is explained below:

Storyboards and 3D models - In the early stages, upon confirmation of the project, we start receiving briefing from the client regarding the subject matter. We may also receive a graphics wish list, draft scripts and various research materials. After reading these materials, we will begin doing our own research and study into these topics and create the storyboards. We will also consider what 3D models we need to build and the best methods to build them. We usually want to receive this as early as possible to accord enough time for animation and rendering, which are a lot more time-consuming. Upon completing the storyboards, we will submit them to the client for confirmation or changes. The completed storyboards then become the basis of a rough cut and also the animation. In certain cases where necessary, we also submit the completed 3D models for confirmation on technical accuracy.

Scene Setup and Animatics - Once the storyboards and 3D models are confirmed correct by the client, we will proceed on setting up the scenes and creating the animation. The animatics are then rendered in low resolution for the client's confirmation on presentation style and accuracy.

Renders - Once the animatics are approved, we will render out a few frames from each scene with proper lighting and texturing. These renders will be submitted to the client for approval on the look. Once the client has approved the renders, we will proceed for compositing and final renders.

Deliverables - The renders will then be delivered in either uncompressed TIFF or Targa and either via FTP or hard drive, depending on the client's preference.

Music, VO and Foley - In cases where the client requires music composition, voiceovers and sound effects, we can bring the animated sequence to a post production house that provides these services, and we will charge a producer fee for overseeing these production.

Post Production - In cases where the client requires us to output to Beta or other broadcast format, we can bring the final graphic edits and sound to a post production facility for export into these broadcast formats.

Sometimes, pipelines need to be structured differently to cater to different productions. Mediafreaks is always flexible and understanding towards this need.

If you would like to know more about 3D animation and what it can do for you, please visit the Mediafreaks. You can also receive a free report regarding 3D animation services for marketing purposes there.

That's not so difficult to answer, is it? Of course you go to Mediafreaks! Alright, seriously now, no single company is suitable for every single project under the sun. I would like to say that Mediafreaks is good at everything, but unfortunately we are not.

Some companies excel at certain genres and other companies at other genres.

Mediafreaks specializes mainly in animated commercials, broadcast animation for documentaries, medical visualization, character design and architectural visualization. There are companies who specialize solely in special effects or architectural visualization work.

The following is my honest advice regarding this subject matter:

1. Find a company that has an extensive portfolio or one that has done something similar to what you have in mind. The first ensures an experienced company and the second gives you the confidence that they have done something similar before and can probably deliver the same to you.

2. Make sure that the company is using more in-house staff than freelancers. Many freelancers are unreliable and may disappear when the going gets tough. Ultimately the company is responsible for their conduct, but you would have wasted your time and perhaps missed a good opportunity to impress with your presentation or marketing campaign. So you stand to lose out even if you don't have to pay for the project ultimately.

3. Ask for milestones and deliverables. Understand what the company's pipeline is like. Any animation companies worth their salt would be able to tell you a pipeline and milestone delivery that sounds logical and reasonable. Click here if you missed my section on Working with an Animation Company to find out more.

4. Find a company that responds fast to emails and phone calls. If the company takes a long time to return mails and calls, chances are they are either too busy to respond, can't be bothered to respond or too disorganized to respond. Either way you should move on and look for the next vendor.

5. Find a company that has project managers or account managers in place. You want to speak to speak to marketing people who understand your marketing needs and not animators who think about cool special effects and nice animation.

6. After giving concise background information of your company and what you want to achieve, see how fast and pro-active the company is in coming back with a proposed solution and a quotation. See if the quotation makes sense and that the company can account for each of the service listed.

7. I would not advise going around for quotations because quite honestly every animation company may charge differently according to their staff strength, reputation, portfolios, whether they are using freelancers or perm staff, standard of work, etc. There are too many variables and it is akin to comparing the prices of cars of different makes. It won't be fair in this respect. Try to go for whichever company can possibly deliver what you need within your budget.

8. Lastly, always work with a company you feel comfortable with. Go with your gut feeling. If you don't feel good about the company, it means you don't have chemistry with the people there and chances are you won't enjoy the working relationship. This will affect the end product.

One of the very common things I always hear people talk about is about them having the idea that animation is a very expensive service to procure, so much so that it is almost unattainable.

This is absolutely untrue and I would like to debunk this thinking once and for all.

While animation is not exactly cheap, it certainly does not cost an arm and a leg to produce either. There are already many companies that have come to realize how powerful animation is as a marketing tool and they are consistently using it to boost their marketing campaigns and presentations. If the cost of animation is really so out of reach and the investments not well worth it, it is unlikely that these companies would ever do this.

There are actually ways in which a client can influence the cost of animation and in order to do that, it would be useful to understand how an animation company thinks.

One of the key determinants that affect how an animation company charges a client is how much the client brings to the meeting table.

By this I don't mean how much cash. I actually mean how much materials and references the client brings to the meeting. Obviously the more the better. The clearer you are in presenting what you want and what you need, the better an animation company can zoom in on how much work has to be done. By knowing what you want and need as a client and setting your expectations right, you can help the animation companies determine better how extensive your project is going to be and therefore give a more accurate quotation. In many cases, animation companies quote on the higher end if a client presents too many uncertainties, just to be on the 'safe side'. This obviously works against a client's best interests.

In Mediafreaks case, we insist on defining or at least outlining a concept before we proceed to give a quotation. We want to give a fair quotation and be able to provide a reasonable assessment before committing to the client, and vice versa.

Sometimes, we get clients who want a quotation in a hurry, and they can give something really vague. For example, they might simply say, "I want to create a presentation of how my manufacturing plant works. How much is something like that going to cost?"

Now, that is really vague! It would be good if they can bring certain information to the table, such as:

1. How long they want the presentation to be

2. Show us brochures and give us a clear idea of what their company does

3. Pictures and sketches of what their plant and equipment looks like, and how the process flow is like

4. What is the presentation and deployment method? Do they want to deploy this over the internet, a CD-Rom or simply from a laptop? Or perhaps they want to do this 'live' from a stage or in a boardroom? Do they need a voiceover or music to go with this?

5. What budget they have in mind

...continued in Part 2

...continued from Part 1

Duration

By telling us how long they want the presentation to be, we could gauge from experience if that duration makes sense. Is it too long or too short? Too long and you risk losing the attention of your client. It also usually means a higher cost. Too short and the presentation would not be effective. A presentation utilizing animation has its own 'effective duration period' and this depends on the product or service in question. An experienced animation house would be able to provide some advice on this.

Corporate Information

We need as much information as possible to understand who our client is and what they are doing. This will allow us to do some research after the initial meeting and find angles for the presentation that would add value. In some cases, we even manage to reduce the cost of the production when we find that we could use certain visuals or materials we have developed previously that are related to the same industry.

Picture References

By showing us pictures and sketches of the plant and corresponding equipment involved in the manufacturing process, we would be able to gauge what kind of work we would need to do. We would know how extensive the work is going to be and give a fair quotation. If the client's budget doesn't fit, we can also suggest ways to present the animation to reduce the workload and therefore the corresponding cost.

Deployment Method cum Voiceover and Music

It always helps if the client has in mind how they want to present their product or service. Do they want this to be deployed over the internet or a CD-Rom where clients can view the presentation in the comfort of their homes or offices? Do they want to do this presentation 'live' from a stage or in a boardroom? All these will affect the presentation method and we can advice the client on the varying costs and presentation tools available, and whether a voiceover or music would be necessary. There are again varying costs for voiceover and music and we would be able to make suggestions and recommendations to the choices available. Our motive here is to offer the most effective solution at the most efficient cost.

Budget in Mind

This is always the million dollar question. Clients sometimes have a budget in mind and they need to tell us frankly what they are thinking. Some of them have the misconception that if they tell a vendor their budget, the vendor would max it out. To be honest, we seldom meet clients who can match whatever we should rightfully charge for a project. Very often, it is our associates in the broadcasting industry who have a more accurate idea of what the fees should rightfully be. Saying that, we understand that the common clients in the other industries have a different perspective and therefore we do accept budgets that are lower than what we would normally charge.

In Mediafreaks's case, when clients tell us their budget-in-mind, it can go either of these directions:

a. We tell them that the budget is really way too low to do anything

b. We tell them that the budget is low but the project is do-able if they are willing to have the concept tweaked and lower their expectations

c. We tell them that the budget is OK

d. We tell them that the budget is more than enough and if they are willing to, we can do more with that budget.

In conclusion, this is what I have to advice to clients. Please be as concise as possible as to what you want because you know your business best and you need to be the one to give directions on what you want to achieve.

As an animation company, what we can do is to understand your brand values, your products and services, your culture and what you want to achieve.

But what we cannot do is to digest the years of experience you have garnered in your field of expertise within a few days or even a few weeks or months.

Please be as concise as possible and do your preparatory work beforehand. This ultimately will not only help you in getting a fair quotation, but also make this presentation a success!