21 January 2020

Adding explainer videos to boost member engagement

Ensuring your members are well-informed on complicated topics like Expression of Wish or their Pension Benefits can be a challenge. Explainer videos are great assets to add to your pensions website because they help explain this complex information in a simple way, essentially getting the basics across step-by-step in a short amount of time.

We often produce short animated explainer videos, and recommend they are no longer than 90 seconds, as viewers are more likely to watch them in full. These videos help boost digital engagement and can be used as places to go for further information through links from other publications.

Below you can find links to examples of the videos that we’ve produced for our clients on some of the topics mentioned above:

The science behind it:

By utilising multiple senses, auditory (voiceover) and visual (infographics and animation), the human brain can absorb more information in a shorter amount of time, but more importantly, the viewer is more likely to understand difficult principles and retain them.

Richard E. Mayer (Professor of Psychology at the University of California) formulated the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer). This principle known as the “multimedia principle” states that “…people learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone.” 1

This theory proposes three main assumptions when it comes to learning with multimedia: 2

  1. There are two separate channels (auditory and visual) for processing information.
  2. Each channel has a limited (finite) capacity.
  3. Learning is an active process of filtering, selecting, organising, and integrating information based upon prior knowledge.

References

  1. Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press.
  2. Mayer, R. E. (2002). Multimedia learning. Psychology of learning and motivation, 41, 85-139.