Animation in the Commercial Realm

Animation as a form of advertising is one of the many ways to utilise the medium's potential. You can use it to produce a story that targets audiences and demographics like any conventional narrative, which, ideally, companies would want them to do, because people will remember the product more if they remember the advertisement for it. For example, a lot of adults tend to remember cereal mascots because during the advertisements for their cereal would typically focus a lot on the mascot in some kind of mini-adventure. Arguably, the standard of advertising with animation could be seen as detrimental to the creator of the advertisement, by limiting them to the guidelines of the advertisement, but the ones that don't do that give the creator that much creative freedom that they can incorporate their own art style, use of narrative, and inspired story that they can be seen as examples of auteur in animation. An example of this is the recent John Lewis Christmas advertisement, The Bear and the Hare. It effectively tells a touching story and uses a very unique animation technique, it doesn't even mention the John Lewis brand until the end of the story.

Animation in the commercial realm can apply to video games as well. A franchise that is given commercial treatment can effectively work as a piece of art. Animal Crossing is a franchise on Nintendo that is one of the more successful games that the company produces, at this point it is very much a tool for profit, but quality is a high priority for the series. It is made to introduce children to capitalist values and the benefits of work, development of social skills, and independent living. These are all done subliminally and are well-hidden behind the layer of "cuteness" the series has.

Big studios generally wish to incorporate animation into their work. There are many title sequences, music videos, and advertisements that use animation because people generally enjoy that medium. They add a sense of intrigue because they make that particular advert, music video, and title sequence stand out out, due to the juxtaposition of animation alongside the real world.