At Magpie, we use creative storytelling and animation to make complex topics clear and sensitive issues accessible. Animation is an effective medium for behaviour change. It helps break down barriers to understanding. Whether it’s tackling mental health, public health messaging, or driving social change, animation brings clarity, emotion, and engagement that traditional formats can’t match.

The Power of Movement

We all know how hard it is to look away from an engaging video. And that’s what we want for our campaigns. We want people to stop, listen, and genuinely connect with the information we’re sharing. When something moves on screen, it instantly captures attention. It helps viewers absorb and remember what they see. Animation takes this even further by combining visuals and motion. It turns tricky ideas into something clear and memorable. Layer by layer, it builds understanding. It helps audiences grasp complex topics in a way that a poster or static graphic simply can’t.

• Viewers retain 95% of a message when watching a video, compared to 10% when reading it. (Insivia)
• Motion design increases engagement metrics by up to 157% compared to static content.(SingleGrain)
• 73% of people prefer to watch a video to learn about a product or service over reading text. (TheLeap)

Animation is a key part of any campaign because it drives higher engagement than static assets. It helps audiences remember information and take action. We can reach more people and make a bigger impact, helping those who need it most.

Crafting an Impactful Animation

To create an impactful animation, you need storytelling, strong visuals and a clear call to action. We start by working with the Behavioural Insights team to understand our audience. We identify the barriers and what motivates them towards action. Weaving in everything we’ve learned into our script. 

Next up is storyboarding. We’ll design the different scenes with notes on how they could be animated. This gives a flavour of how everything can come together. The creative concept used for the design is usually tested or co-created with the audience. This ensures the output is something they would engage with.

Finally, is the edit, pulling everything together. The script, music, voiceover, sound effects, and storyboard come to life with motion. The end result is a video encompassing everything our audience has told us. It resonates with them to ensure it will engage our key audience, and ultimately create impact. It moves us towards behaviour change.

Examples of our work

Beyond its ability to capture attention, video is an excellent way to simplify complex information. It allows you to break down key messages into digestible formats. These include digital ads or explainer videos. They guide the audience to understand a problem and take meaningful action. Animation can make messages more accessible. It includes the option to deliver content in multiple languages, ensuring it reaches a wider audience. 

These are some examples of our videos. They cover a wide variety of animation and video formats, motion graphics, 2D animation, stop motion, explainer videos, and tutorials.

Covid Explained

The Covid Explained campaign was to make information about COVID-19 simpler and more accessible. It targeted people that are less likely to comply with regulations or be vaccinated. The campaign was translated into 12 languages. Video was a key part of the campaign deliverables. We created lived experience videos, explainer videos, and tutorials.

• 838,000 people viewed the video
• Most people watched to 80% through on average

Impact area: Health & wellbeing
Style: Illustrative explainer video
Audience: The UK public

Are your medicines working for you?

The Are your medicines working for you? campaign had 2 phases. In phase 1, we focused on educating people on the importance of regular medicine reviews. The visual direction, tested with the audience, lent itself to a bold stop motion style of animation. It helped to bring these messages to life and capture the audience’s attention.

We manually photographed every frame, nudging the pills around on a piece of paper a couple of millimetres at a time. The result is eye-catching, nostalgic, and entirely different from usual NHS comms. It brings the sometimes dry topic to life. 

In phase 2, we focused on over-ordering and helping people understand the complexities of changing or removing items from their prescription. There are multiple ways this can be done, and it can be confusing to navigate. So, we decided to create an explainer video. It splits these out so it’s really clear, depending on how you order and manage your prescriptions. For this video, we digitally created the stop motion. We learned how to make it slightly imperfect, mimicking a real stop motion.

Impact area: Health & wellbeing
Style: Stop motion, explainer video
Audience: People living in the North East & North Cumbria 

Check the Vibe

Check the Vibe was a campaign focused on sexual violence prevention for young people. It encouraged reflection and self awareness. The design direction was  co-created with the audience, mirroring how they communicate online. 

We created an animated video with kinetic type, using digital UI elements. A VO positioned as a ‘trusted role model’ brings some of these complex emotions to life. The end result is an engaging and powerful video. It feels authentic and supportive.

Impact area: Harm reduction & Safety
Style: 2D motion, kinetic type
Audience: Young people aged 13-18  

Cancer Voices

Cancer Voices was a co-created campaign with lived experience. It encouraged more people to join the Cancer Voices community. This is a patient representative panel which helps feedback on how best to support patients undergoing treatment in Greater Manchester. As a part of the toolkit, we created an animated video. It could be shared to raise awareness of the community and its benefits.

The animation brings to life the shapes from the brand. This helps tell the story of the Cancer Voices community. It helps make the role of a patient representative easy to understand.

Impact area: Health & wellbeing
Style: 2D motion
Audience: Cancer patients, former patients, carers or have supported someone through cancer, nurses & clinicians in Greater Manchester

At Magpie, we understand the power of learning from our audiences to create meaningful and impactful campaigns that create behaviour change. In a digital age, it’s crucial to approach campaigns with a test-and-learn mindset. Piloting creative behaviour change marketing campaigns (or any marketing campaign) digitally as an initial test and learn phase, is an invaluable approach for creating insight-driven, personalised and cost-effective full-scale marketing campaigns. 

Here’s why: 

• A/B Testing: In A/B testing, two versions of content are compared to see which one performs better. A control version (A) is tested against a variant version (B) to find out which one is most successful. Paid digital campaigns provide the perfect environment for A/B testing that cannot be replicated in more traditional marketing approaches. By experimenting with different creative elements, messaging strategies, and audience targeting, we can gain valuable insights into what resonates best with the target demographic. A/B testing during pilot campaigns allows for data-driven decisions, ensuring that the full campaign is optimised for maximum impact.

• Small Budgets and Big Insights: We often execute pilot campaigns with smaller budgets, making them a cost-effective way to test hypotheses and refine strategies before committing to larger budgets. Despite a limited budget, the insights gleaned from pilots can be invaluable in shaping the direction of the full campaign, leading to better use of budgets on the elements that have proven most effective as well as higher returns on investment.

Message and Creative Testing: Understanding which messages and creative resonate most with the audience is key to crafting compelling marketing campaigns. Paid digital pilots enable us to test different messaging and creative concepts in real time, allowing for optimisations and changes based on performance metrics. This approach ensures that the final campaign is optimised and tailored to effectively communicate key messages and calls to action.

We have done this across a number of our campaigns.

Hertfordshire County Council: Let’s Clear the Air

‘Let’s Clear the Air’ is a creative multi-channel campaign co-created with Hertfordshire County Council to address the impact of air quality on residents. The digital aspect of the campaign aimed to drive residents living in Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) to sign up for air pollution alerts via the Hertfordshire County Council website.  

KPIs for this campaign were heavily reliant on the digital strategy, therefore we carried out an initial pilot campaign to A/B test creative behavioural messaging concepts to determine the most effective messaging for the campaign. We utilised Facebook, Google Search and Google Display. Hertfordshire County Council council gained valuable insights into audience preferences and we optimised the strategy for maximum impact. The pilot campaign informed the rollout of a comprehensive, 12-month digital strategy, resulting in increased awareness and engagement with air quality initiatives. Find out more.

• Understanding of KPIs and Manageable Expectations: Pilot campaigns provide an opportunity to define key performance indicators (KPIs) and establish realistic expectations for the full campaign. By setting measurable goals and tracking performance metrics during the pilot phase, we can gain a deeper understanding of what success looks like and adjust strategies accordingly.

• Platform Insights: Each digital platform (ie – social media sites, Google Search etc) can offer different advantages in terms of potential reach/engagement and targeting capabilities. Pilot campaigns allow us to test different platforms and determine which platforms are most successful in terms of the overall goals of the campaign. This knowledge helps us to determine which platforms should be selected for the full campaign, ensuring maximum reach and impact.

• Comments and Community Engagement: Engaging with the audience through comments and feedback is integral to ensuring that concerns are heard and questions are answered. Pilot campaigns provide an opportunity to anticipate and address common themes that may arise in comments, allowing us to refine messaging and response strategies for the full campaign. Advanced preparation based on insights from pilot campaigns ensures a proactive approach to community engagement.
  
• More Effective Use of a Bigger Budget: By leveraging the insights gained from pilot campaigns, we can make informed decisions when allocating resources for the full campaign. A deeper understanding of audience preferences, platform performance, and messaging effectiveness allows for a more strategic use of resources, maximising the impact of the campaign.

RSPCA: Healthier Breeds

Through a targeted digital campaign, we addressed the demand for flat-faced (brachycephalic) dogs, leveraging audience insights and dynamic creative to raise awareness about the health risks associated with these breeds. The pilot campaign allowed for precise audience targeting and message testing, leading to significant engagement and a shift in the desire to purchase a brachycephalic dog. From this, we gained a deeper understanding of the motivations behind purchasing these breeds and which messages resonate the most with the audience. This allows us to create an insight-driven and cost-effective strategy for a potential national extension. Find out more.

In conclusion, digital pilots play a vital role in shaping insight-driven campaigns. By embracing A/B testing, small budgets, and iterative improvements, we can optimise their strategies for maximum impact. Through platform insights, community engagement, and effective resource allocation, pilot campaigns serve as invaluable stepping stones towards successful full-scale marketing campaigns. 

At Magpie, we recognise the importance of leveraging digital pilots to create campaigns that resonate with audiences and drive meaningful change. See below to get in touch and find out more.

To this day, women’s safety still falls on women’s shoulders. This needs to change.

Working with the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) Magpie has launched Every Man Can, a new campaign to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls. While this work is aimed at the region’s men, campaign content was co-designed with an Independent Advisory Group on tackling Violence Against Women and Girls.

Our approach

When Magpie reviewed the creative that has been produced in a similar campaign space, we identified that there was an opportunity to produce a new, more supportive voice to the conversation.

A lot of past campaigns we looked at focus on the violent, dark and intimidating side of violence against women and girls. They point the finger and tell people about the problem without showing how they can make a positive difference.

Studies of marketing and social psychology going back decades show that campaigns that point to errors or character flaws in their target audience tend to trigger denial. They create stigmas. And they stoke frustration, especially when people feel both under attack and unable to change their behaviour.

These effects can cause men to angrily resist change. Studies have found that these campaigns can even lead to a sense amongst perpetrators that their behaviour is acceptable.

Some of these campaigns have undoubtedly broken the silence around the issue, but with “no intention of having a long conversation around it.” (1)

Role models

While most existing campaigns focus on men being told what not to do, we decided to focus on the positive actions men can take to support women and girls. We wanted to highlight the healthy behaviour men can exhibit to treat women and girls with respect and stand alongside them against gendered violence and abuse.

We aimed to avoid scare tactics, avoid moralistic messages and present healthy social norms already existing among men in South Yorkshire. We also wanted to avoid making all men feel like perpetrators, and we didn’t want women to feel the campaign minimises the danger, violence, and abuse they face.

We needed to avoid creating a campaign where men are portrayed as the protectors of women. We were determined to use a group of real South Yorkshire men who represented the diversity of the region. It was important to communicate a ‘sense of place’ – South Yorkshire residents should be able to see themselves in the men featured in the campaign. 

They have taken a leading role as the voices and faces of the campaign.

Every Man Can Campaign video

Starting a conversation

The creative acts as a launchpad for conversations about the day-to-day behaviours that make women feel unsafe and uncomfortable. 

The name ‘Every Man Can’ and identity for the campaign is bold, empowering and positive. It’s important that the name engages with the audience and inspires positive action.

The campaign name uses a hashtag to emphasise that one of the aims of the campaign is to encourage conversations between men.

Six key actions

After an extensive consultation process with key groups in the region, we distilled the campaign messaging and created six key actions that all men can take to support women and girls and help stop violence. 

We wanted to make the messaging feel accessible, avoiding negative language but remaining true to the intent of the campaign.

The launch

The campaign launch was held at Liberty Church in Rotherham. Speakers included the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Dr Alan Billings, Head of the VRU, Graham Jones, and the team from Magpie. Attendees came from organisations across South Yorkshire, including community and third sector organisations, and public services such as South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue.

We created a campaign toolkit for the South Yorkshire VRU to roll out the Every Man Can campaign for the next three years.

References:

(1) Dr. Jorge M. Agüero, Associate Professor of Economics at El Instituto: The Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies of the University of Connecticut

(2) Professor Nicole Westmarland. Director of Durham University’s Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse