If you're thinking about character animation for business, you're in good company.
There are some fantastic examples out there, and the benefits can be compelling:
For businesses using animated video production to tell their story, characters give abstract services a face, a personality, something tangible for audiences to connect with.
Characters can embody the struggles, frustrations, and victories that your audience experiences—making your message more personal.
The journey from frustration to relief, confusion to clarity, problem to solution—characters bring these emotional beats to life.
But here's what often gets missed: you can achieve all these things without using characters too.
A well-written script creates a compelling narrative, and when combined with strong visuals, you'll engage your audience from start to finish.
So maybe the question isn't so much whether character animation is better, but more about whether it's the right choice for your brand and your message.
This article will explore when character animation is the right choice, which type makes strategic sense, and—just as importantly—when other creative routes might serve your goals better.
Whether they use characters or not, the brands that see the strongest results from their videos start with a strategic foundation.
This foundation doesn't just define the success of your video. It clearly informs the best creative solutions. One of those possible creative solutions being to use characters.
Understanding the animation production process from the start helps you make informed decisions about which creative route will serve your brand best.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Are we driving conversions? Building brand awareness? Explaining a complex product? Each goal demands a different approach.
Is this a high-level brand video that establishes who you are? Or is it a conversion tool—an explainer video designed to move prospects down the funnel?
What does your existing brand identity tell us about tone, visual style, and how you communicate? How would a character approach feel within the current brand guidelines?
Producing character animation that feels fluid and realistic usually requires a sizeable budget, so this will be a key consideration early on.
When you have clarity on these foundations, creative decisions become much clearer. Including whether characters strengthen your story or whether another route serves you better.
When you think of characters in animation, you probably picture people.
But here's the thing—characters don't have to be human.
What we're really talking about is human-like expression. A character can be as simple as a circle, so long as it feels like a personality.
And this approach comes with some real advantages.
One of the major drawbacks of human-like design is choosing demographics that won't alienate part of your audience.
If your protagonist is depicting a busy CTO, are they male or female? Young or old? What ethnicity? How do you reflect diversity in a way that includes everyone?
If your audience doesn't identify with the character, you risk creating distance before the story has even begun.
Abstract characters sidestep this entirely. A shape, an icon, a stylised form—these don't carry the same representational challenges. You're not making choices about age, gender, or appearance that might exclude viewers.
Plus, abstract characters feel more like a distinctive brand asset. Completely ownable. Think about characters like the Duolingo owl or the Mailchimp chimp. Instantly recognisable. Impossible to confuse with anyone else's brand.
Human-like characters can also be incredibly powerful, and they work well in two key scenarios.
First, when your target audience is very specific and well-defined—and you're depicting a protagonist they can see themselves as. If you're targeting working mothers in their 30s or healthcare professionals in clinical settings, a literal character that reflects that audience can create instant connection.
But second, there are times when you're telling a story where the viewer isn't meant to be the character. You're just telling the story.
Take our work with the Association of British Insurers. We told the story of a father who had an accident, and the mother explaining the benefits of car insurance to her son through the process of his recovery. The audience wasn't meant to be these characters—they were witnessing a story that illustrated the value of something people were unhappy about.
Or London City Airport, where we showed characters in a queue and one of them had forgotten their boarding pass. That personification made the audience feel the awkwardness of holding up a queue in a way that abstract characters might not have achieved as powerfully.
There's no right or wrong here. Human-like characters can (and do) work beautifully. But it's always worth exploring both routes before defaulting to the literal approach. Representing diversity creatively becomes an important consideration when you go down the literal character route.
Take one of our projects with HEKA, an employee benefits platform. Their brand was all about people—matching employees with the right benefits.
Their brand guidelines already included shapes representing different benefits. We turned those shapes into characters. Each character personified a different type of employee, and when their shape matched a benefit shape, they connected. A visual metaphor for finding exactly what you need.
The brief practically demanded characters. The brand identity supported it. The story required it. And the result felt natural, not forced.
This is character animation working strategically.
Once there's a creative decision to use characters, the question of 2D or 3D comes down to brand guidelines, preferences, and budget.
It's not a black and white choice either. You might have 2D characters within a 3D environment. Or 3D characters in a 2D environment. Or full 2D. Or full 3D.
These are all considerations on the table, informed by what fits your brand style, what serves the story, and what's realistic within your budget. Choosing the right animation style involves weighing these creative and practical factors together.
Here's where strategic thinking extends beyond the single video.
The branded motion approach you've developed—whether it includes characters or not—how does that fit into your wider brand landscape?
The video sits on your web page. Great. But is that being followed up with Lottie files throughout the website, creating a more cohesive motion brand experience?
Are those same illustrations being used in other marketing materials? As part of social cutdowns that reach audiences beyond your website? In pop-up banners for events?
This isn't just about maximising value. It's about creating visual consistency across every touchpoint where your audience encounters you.
When you think strategically about your branded motion design from the start, you're building a foundation that works much harder across your entire marketing ecosystem. This is where brand storytelling becomes central to your entire visual communication strategy.
The most successful videos are the ones that think strategically and ask the right questions from the get-go.
Whether to use characters or not becomes a strategic creative decision after there's a solid brief in place.
The strategic foundation—understanding your goals, your audience, your brand positioning—that's what determines which creative route will serve you best.
Maybe a character-based approach strengthens the story. Maybe abstract characters work better than literal ones for your audience. Maybe you discover that characters aren't the strongest route, and a different creative approach serves the strategy better.
Character animation is a tool, not a default solution. Use it when it solves a specific communication challenge. When it serves your strategy. When it genuinely helps your audience connect with your message in a way other approaches can't match.
Ready to explore whether character animation for business is the right choice for your brand? Book a discovery call to discuss your project, or get our guide to learn more about our strategic approach and pricing.
