The Brand Playbook
The guides show you how to make a toon yourself. This is the other half — for the person deciding whether to commission one, what to brief, and what to do with it once it exists.
Where to use your brand video beyond Instagram
Put the same clip on your homepage, in email, on your Google Business Profile, on a screen at the counter, and in every pitch deck — one video, five more jobs, no extra shoot.
What to film when you think your business isn't visual
Film the process, the hands, the before-and-after and the small moments customers never see — then use animation only for the one shot a phone can't get, like a mascot tying it together.
Should your founder be the face, or should you build a mascot?
If people are buying you — a doctor, a consultant, a chef — put your founder on camera. If you're building something that should outlast you, build a mascot instead.
Running Video Ads on a Small Budget Without Wasting It
Only pay to boost a video that already got real organic traction on its own — treat the first spend as a small test, not a launch.
Shares vs. saves: why one metric builds your audience and the other doesn't
A share pushes your video into someone else's feed and finds new viewers; a save just bookmarks it for the same viewer, so a heavily-saved film can hit big numbers without ever reaching anyone new.
199 AI films, 188 million views: 10% of them carried 90% of it
Reach follows a power law, not a bell curve — in our data, the top 10% of films holds 89.6% of the 188M views, so growth comes from more attempts, not a better median video.
What a Pixar-style AI ad actually costs to make
A custom Pixar-style AI ad costs $97 to $449 to generate, driven almost entirely by runtime, how many scenes it cuts between, and whether a character has to match a real face or product exactly.
The AI Tools Behind Every Film We Make
We stitch together an image model for character sheets, a video model for motion, a voice model for lines, and a human editor for the parts none of them get right.
How to keep an AI character consistent across videos
Lock a character reference sheet — multiple angles, one approved face — before you animate anything; a text description alone gets reinterpreted fresh every time and drifts from clip to clip.
Turn one video into a month's worth of content
One 15-second hero video can be cut, cropped and re-exported into five or six different posts — a teaser, a slow-motion detail, a grid still, a website loop — before you need to shoot anything new.
How to tell if your brand video actually worked
Skip the view count and check reach to people who don't already follow you, saves, shares, profile visits, and DMs or bookings — then judge it against the job you hired it for, over two to four weeks.
AI video vs traditional production: an honest comparison for small brands
AI wins on cost, speed, impossible shots and recurring characters; a traditional shoot still wins on exact product fidelity, real people, and precise reshoots — the right choice depends on which of those you actually need.
Custom AI videos for brands: what they cost and when they're worth it
A custom AI video runs roughly $97 to $449 depending on scenes, runtime, and whether a character has to match a real person — worth it when you have somewhere to put it, and skippable when you don't.
How to brief a video agency so you get what you pictured
Show references instead of adjectives, pick one hero product, and name the single thing that must be right — vagueness like "do whatever you think is best" is what buys the revision round nobody wanted.
How to promote a brand on Instagram with video in 2026
Promotion isn't posting — it's a strong first second, a clip that works on mute, and a plan for what you do with the video after it goes up, not before.
How to structure a 15-second character short
A short that works is five parts stacked together: a locked character description, a second-by-second beat sheet, one repeatable comedy engine, a few tight props, and a negative list — structure, not a single clever idea.
Instagram Reels for local business: what works for clinics, salons and restaurants
Local is a different game: a reel seen by 2,000 nearby people beats one seen by 200,000 strangers, so film the real place, animate what a camera can't, and make the next step to book obvious.
Why a recurring character beats a one-off video
A character built once is an asset: it's reusable, gets cheaper per video, and gives your audience something to recognise — turning scattered one-off clips into a series people follow.
Viral channel outreach: getting your video onto other people's audiences
If you have a good video and no reach, borrow someone else's: find accounts whose audience overlaps yours, send a specific personal message, and price paid usage separately from an organic collaboration.
What actually makes a brand video go viral (and what doesn't)
A few posts carry almost all the reach, so the winning move is enough good shots on goal — a recognisable character and a joke that lands on mute — not one perfect, over-polished film.
Other playbooks
The Reference Board Playbook — keeping a subject on-model across every generation.