ABOUT

Concept
Fidelity International UK forecasted the market entering into a period of heightened volatility from early 2020 and The Dubs were commissioned to create an associated short form, video series for the purpose of calming retail investors in an environment of falling share prices. The principal challenge was to explain a variety of technically complex investment stratagems to a retail investor audience in simple, real-world language and to deliver this as succinctly as possible.

For the content to differentiate; it was important that visuals avoided the more obvious route of financial charts and diagrams or ‘talking head to camera’ formats. By doing this successfully, content consumption can be driven to as wide a retail investment audience segment as possible.

Execution
The Dubs distilled a huge amount of marketing collateral and white paper type content around the theme of volatility to create three x 1.5-minute scripts. These covered the three key themes of Volatility vs Risk, Regular Savings and Diversification.

Each script was constructed around a story arc with full character development. In parallel with the script development, The Dubs created an isometric visual identity so that a consistent visual link was drawn through all the videos in the series. This made them wholly ownable to Fidelity International UK.

This was then laid into a frame by frame storyboard so that key visuals and animation instruction could be paired to the voice-over narration. A commercial voice-over artist was engaged and recorded in a professional sound recording studio to ensure the highest quality output.

The Dubs then used its own animators to bring the flattened storyboard visuals to life with carefully directed transitions and movement paired with polished frame fades, wipes and dissolves.

Results
The completed videos are very straightforward and easy to understand (and therefore recall). By foregoing the traditional ‘talking head’ piece to camera or succumbing to the use of staid, technical charting in the explanation of complex subject material; The Dubs created a truly striking visual framework and animation style.

The additional benefit of an animated short-form approach to video production is that visual assets can be easily repurposed and paired with new script requirements. This allows Fidelity International UK to be in market with relevant and highly engaging content without the associated lead time that might otherwise be expected.