They say “less is more.”
And sometimes, simplicity is genius.
Doodle-styled explainer videos—those charming, hand-drawn animations—are proof of that.
These videos take complex ideas and turn them into bite-sized, visually engaging stories that really stick.
Whether you’re in the B2B or B2C space, doodle videos can work wonders for your marketing.
They’re perfect for breaking down tough concepts, building trust with your audience, and inspiring action.
Plus, their casual, approachable vibe makes them incredibly versatile.
Doodle videos are a kind of “whiteboard” style animated videos, but the characters and overall design are playful and lively and can stand out from the sea of highly polished, colorful art styles that saturate social media and the online marketing space.
If you’re not already using doodle-styled videos for your business, you’re leaving engagement—and sales—on the table. To inspire you, we’ve rounded up 15 stellar examples that show just how impactful these videos can be.
Image Credits: Freepik (Source)
Before we dive into the examples, here’s why doodle videos deserve a spot in your marketing strategy:
The best way to get inspired with creating your own doodle video is to look at how others did it really well and let the ideas flow.
What did they do that worked so well?
How did they do it?
And how can you make those tricks and techniques work for your video?
Let’s dive in!
Doodle or whiteboard videos don’t have to be black-and-white 2D scribbles.
In this video we created for RBS Invoice, we see a clever blend of whiteboard and 3D without breaking the bank, by turning the elements into paper cutouts.
The 3D look makes it stand out from the usual style and look premium but was surprisingly simple to create.
The script was crafted to speak to the customers’ pain points when dealing with everyday financial issues, which then smoothly transitions to explaining how RBS is here to save the customers’ day and peace of mind.
Teamwork is great. As the old saying goes, many hands make light work.
But there’s a flip side to teamwork: the herd mentality, which stifles innovative new ideas from being voiced.
And that can be a problem when you’re looking to your team to really brainstorm a solution.
Spigit was created to tackle this phenomenon and give every team member a voice, while also letting the crowd speak and collectively decide on what ideas are worth looking into.
And to explain how it works, they teamed up with Yum Yum Studios to break it all down using cute cartoony doodles and a friendly voiceover.
In just over a minute, this complex solution is explained through simple but clever visuals that make everything clear and easy to understand.
If your first reaction to this video was “When’s the whiteboard going to show up?” then you’re not alone.
It’s this convention-breaking art style that sets this video apart from the rest.
Cleverly combining live-action 3D with 2D style cartoon drawings, the whiteboard animation video by the European Commission to promote Interoperability drives the point of working in harmony further.
Using clever metaphors, this whiteboard explainer video addresses pain points by showing the disharmony between two violin players.
When everything comes together, and you hear what Ode to Joy is actually meant to sound like, you realize what Interoperability aims to do.
All this without a single mention of their features!
The great thing about animated explainer videos is their versatility. You can use them for ads, social media– or even for employee training, like this one we created for Clif Bar & Co.
The doodle-y, whiteboard style adds a zap of life and energy to what would otherwise be a dry and boring training video.
The art grabs and holds the viewer’s attention and makes everything just that much more interesting and immersive.
But the best thing about whiteboard/doodle videos is that they deliver the same magic as other animation styles while costing a fraction of what they do. It’s one of the main reasons they’re so popular.
Just because doodle/whiteboard videos are minimalistic, it doesn’t mean they have to be as plain and ascetic as the cell of a medieval monk.
With a little ingenuity and imagination, you can put your own spin on your video to make it stand out, like this brilliant video for Working From_.
It’s a great way to highlight their co-working spaces, by using actual still photographs of them and populating them with cute doodled characters happily at work. It’s clever, stands out, and doesn’t break the bank doing it.
Making a lifesaving new drug is hardly easy. A big part of the process is clinical trials, where new drugs are tested on patients and the results are carefully studied.
And while the science part of it is bafflingly complex enough to anyone without a medical degree, the sheer logistics are a whole other problem altogether.
MedVector sets out to streamline this process. To explain how it works, they used animated doodle videos to make everything clear and simple in a matter of minutes.
The great thing about animated explainer videos is how you can use clever visual metaphors and symbols to (quite literally) illustrate difficult, abstract concepts and ideas, which traditional live-action filming usually cannot accomplish.
This helps make the message clear, easy to understand, and even visually interesting, holding the viewer’s attention from start to finish.
Let’s take a quick detour from these bite-sized fun videos to look at another use for doodles and whiteboard videos: educational content.
This is a longer-form educational video by the California Academy of Sciences that explains the complex phenomenon of ocean acidification, one of the many effects of climate change.
It’s a bafflingly complex topic that is notoriously difficult to summarize neatly into an advertising-style short video.
Go into too much detail, and you confuse or overwhelm your audience– or worse, lose their interest altogether.
Summarize it too much, and you risk diluting the information to the point where it’s useless anyway.
What do you do?
Fortunately, animation can save the day. By using the creativity of animation, information can be represented through images and clever metaphors, bringing even the most dense, abstract concepts to life.
Viewers can understand these ideas better and easier when they have something visual for their minds to grasp onto.
We are, after all, a highly visual species– sight and sound are the primary ways we sense the world around us, and almost a full quarter of our brains are devoted to processing those two senses alone.
So it’s no surprise that animated explainer videos can be so powerful as teaching tools, and more.
When it comes to animated explainer videos, DropBox is a company that went all-out embracing them for their branding, messaging, and more, with a distinctive style that connected with their brand.
This personal touch extended even to their doodle video, putting a twist on the visual style by using paper cut-outs for their doodled characters and elements, making it fresh and different enough to stand out from the crowd.
It’s hard to overstate how simple but brilliant this idea is.
Just goes to show what you can do with a little imagination and style!
Motorcycling is a passionate hobby, but it can come with a bit of a learning curve– and we don’t mean just learning to ride.
Picking the right bike can be confusing and overwhelming, with so many options to choose from.
The very thought of walking into a motorcycle dealership can be intimidating for many.
So this motorcycle dealership used the power of animation to explain to the viewer that it doesn’t have to be so complicated, and how their team is ready to help guide you through the process, from picking the right bike for you and even helping you figure out how to pay for it with no regrets later.
Note how the art style simplifies these ideas while making the message more lively and interesting, even entertaining.
The best ideas come about when someone simply sits down and imagines, “What if there’s a better way to do this?”
It’s how the coaching platform Rypple came about. And it’s also the core theme of their delightful doodle video that explains how they’re setting out to transform teamwork for the better.
Note the central use of storytelling here.
Rather than spout facts and figures and abstract concepts, it introduces you to two relatable characters who feel more like cogs trapped in a corporate machine, than like happy, energized members of a team that works like a living breathing ecosystem, in sync with their teammates and doing amazing things. It then asks you to imagine if things could be better, and how.
It’s a great use of the storytelling rule, “show, don’t tell.” The video effortlessly takes the viewer on a journey that starts with pain points and problems and smoothly transitions to the solution offered by Rypple. It’s engaging, interesting even entertaining to watch!
Email has been one of the greatest modern inventions, but it came with an unintended side effect: spam.
This has led to an endless arms race where spam folders and filters block spam emails so you don’t even have to see them, only for spammers to work even harder to outwit those filters.
And on and on it goes.
The end result is that a lot of genuine emails end up in the spam folder instead of the inbox, leading to your customers missing out on automated emails that they actually need from you.
What’s the solution? SendGrid has the answer. But it presents it through the lens of the problem as described above.
This way, it addresses the pain points of app and software developers and companies that need to regularly send out automated emails to customers, before presenting the solution to these problems.
This strategy establishes that SendGrid truly understands your world, and is also a leading expert who can be trusted to solve its problems.
We love the cut-out doodle art style too! It’s neat and clean, even has a dash of color, while being simple and minimalistic all at once.
Short. Simple. Engaging.
These were the three words that popped into our minds after watching the series of whiteboard animation spots.
This campaign was designed around the message of “it’s easy to get into a Ford.”
It is amazing how the videos talk about everything in just 15 seconds and leave you wanting more.
Ford brand colors were smartly used with the whiteboard style and car images were seamlessly blended together.
Hand movements were animated just at the right moments to keep the engagement going.
Let’s carry on and have a look at this whiteboard animation video for Northwestern Medicine made by Slingshot Studios.
The video is as simple as it gets– but that works in its favor really well.
The simplicity of the video allows for other aspects (like animation) to take care of presenting Northwestern’s offering in a cohesive and effective way.
In fact, the minimalism of the video also helps the message come through in a simple way– and does a great job of simplifying Northwestern’s offering, too.
The story does a great job of motivating Cisco's sales team to capture maximum market share and also learn about the “why” behind the design of this solution.
The use of brand colors is done subtly and compositions are balanced across the whiteboard video.
The use of hand movements is done with precision and it keeps you engaged through all three minutes.
Let’s have a look at another favorite whiteboard animation video of ours.
Made for Closet Factory, we left no stone unturned to help them get their message across.
They were facing a dilemma on the medium which will help simplify their offering for their customers and reached out to us for a solution.
We went one step further and crafted this video for them that not only solves their problem but also adds a boost of life and energy to their message.
It spices up their offering and makes it even more interesting than it already is.
Image Credits: Freepik (Source)
Doodle videos aren’t just fun to watch—they’re business powerhouses. Here’s why:
Doodle-styled and whiteboard explainer videos are more than just a creative choice—they’re a strategic marketing tool.
They simplify the complex, engage audiences, and inspire action. Whether you’re launching a product, educating your audience, or building brand trust, these videos can do it all.
Ready to see the magic of doodle animation in action? Take inspiration from these examples and start creating videos that captivate and convert. Need help? Let’s bring your vision to life with expert animated video production today!