Educating or impressing? For the right effect, choose the right visual approach

Working in pharma, you use visual aids every day to talk about the latest developments in medical science. Maybe you’re explaining a disease’s pathophysiology and potential therapeutic targets to a physician. Maybe you’re presenting a new therapeutic’s mechanism of action to a group of key opinion leaders. Or maybe you’re training your MSLs to share the results of a recently published phase III trial. All of this communication is supported by visuals, whether they are animated or static. But when you need a new visual, a simple yet important question arises: what should it look like?

Illustrations, animated videos, and slides come in a range of styles all with different levels of complexity, different costs, and different timelines. Visuals can have a simple visual style, such as 2D flat design with icons. Visuals can also have a highly detailed 3D style. They can be pragmatically designed to convey a message as quickly and effectively as possible. Or they can be designed to be glossy and eye-catching.

The style you choose depends on your audience and your goal.

Impressing congress visitors with eye-catcher animations

Appealing 3D animation for maximum visual impact

Do you want to attract congress visitors to your booth? Congress visitors are flooded with stimuli. That is why companies often use unusual, highly vibrant, and loud visuals to get attention and stand out.  Animations that are elaborate and super dynamic, or static visuals that are splashy and beautifully rendered in 4k work mainly as eye-catchers. A cinematic camera flight through the microcosm of a human cell can captivate viewers who would otherwise get distracted and walk away. Materials that maximize for beauty speak to an audience’s emotional side and convince with “wow” effects.

Educating audiences with a 2D/3D cross-over approach

Meaningful combination of 3D animation and 2D infographic elements

Do you want your target audience to gain a lasting understanding of a complex topic and be firmly convinced of the data supporting your product’s efficacy and safety profile?

When explaining a complex mode-of action, beauty-first materials are not ideal. They can distract the audience from the most important information. Even worse: they can trigger your audience’s skepticism by coming off as too commercial and thus less credible. To get messages across and make ideas take root it takes more than just pretty pictures. You need a coherent story. Sound didactics.  Visuals that are scientifically accurate and easy to understand. If viewers cannot understand what they’re seeing, then the animation is worse than useless. More importantly, inaccurate, confusing visuals can also lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication, which can ultimately jeopardize patient care.

Nevertheless, didactics, accuracy, and clarity do not preclude aesthetics. They in fact go hand in hand when in balance. At CAST PHARMA, we recommend a 2D/3D cross-over approach to communicate complex information in an appealing way. 2D elements and animations break content down to the most important points. Engaging 3D visuals attract the audience and make the content more memorable. Combining 2D and 3D in a captivating visual story conveys key information in a way that educates and resonates.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution

When thinking about an eye-catcher animation, it is important to remember that beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. In addition, the creation is time-consuming and thus cost intensive. It should therefore be well considered whether a beauty-first approach is worth it, or if a well-balanced combination of 2D and 3D animations would make a bigger impact.