The Client
Betterment, a distinguished US-based financial advisory firm, manages over 40 billion USD in assets as of 2023. Specializing in digital investment management, retirement planning, and cash management services, it is headquartered in New York City.
The firm is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, ensuring a secure and trustworthy environment for personal finance and investment management.
Objective
Betterment offers an array of cryptocurrency portfolio options, including their Universe and Metaverse portfolios. These offerings enable their clients to transact and invest using digital currencies, delving into the advanced and exciting world of cryptocurrencies.
Acknowledging the complexity of these concepts, Betterment approached us with the idea of creating succinct animated videos. Our task as the animation company is to simplify and convey these concepts in an engaging and comprehensible way, to help Betterment’s clients understand the services they offer.
How we did it
The Style Sheet
To best tailor our video to Betterment’s objective, we had to settle on a solid and cohesive design. We decided on a colourful, 2D style that drew the viewer’s eye while keeping everything simple and uncomplicated, including little animated characters for that sprinkle of approachability. We tied this in heavily with the client’s branding guidelines, ensuring that the final video had that Betterment touch.
The Storyboards (Preliminary Sketches)
To cut through the confusion around the technical details behind crypto, we used visual metaphors to give an instinctive understanding of just what we’re showing. Playing on the ‘Universe’ concept, we used constellations to represent the network of different crypto coins, zooming in on each ‘star’ to explain the various facets under the Universe portfolio.
The Storyboards (Vector Version)
We then vectorised, converting our sketches into art created from mathematical equations as opposed to graphics composed of solid, color-filled square pixels. This ensures the utmost quality even when zoomed into the details.
We also added in a male narrating voice to walk the viewers through the details, with a more muted background track to place greater emphasis on the narration. Plus sound effects to make the motions really pop.
Animating Stage
Our 2D team worked their magic, bringing every scene to life straight from the digital storyboard and making sure everything happened just as we envisioned. On top of that, we synced the voiceovers with the animations and added some top-notch stock music to really boost the viewing experience.
The Result
The final animations were uploaded to Betterment’s website and landing pages, serving just as well in aiding Betterment’s clients in understanding their products.
These projects really helped Betterment explain their Universe Portfolio and Decentralized Finance Portfolio to their customers, making sure they fully understood what they were getting into. Due to how well these animated videos worked for Betterment, they hired Kasra Design© to produce more explainer videos for all their different cryptocurrency portfolios: