Academic research confirms the efficacy of using cartoons to teach complex topics, like economics.
You can teach brain surgery effectively, research indicates, by using cartoons of a brain. But you don't have to be a brain surgeon to use this technique to engage your clients and prospects. It's a simple formula.
Take a complex problem, like retirement income planning. Add a funny character and storytelling, and post it as a video to your YouTube channel. You make information fun to consume.
Replicating the technique employed in GEICO’s popular gecko TV ads, an advisor’s static website brochure can be populated by a mascot or cute creature. Make it true to your physical and personality profile if you want to do it right..
Perhaps because, as children, everyone watches cartoons, we’re all wired for digesting information fast when it is communicated in cartoons. I surveyed the Social Science Research Network and other academic research databases. Though I still don’t know why cartoons are so effective in communicating, evidence shows cartoons improve engagement measurably.
I recently created a mascot for Advisor Products. It’s a beaver. I can say that with a straight face only because the Advisor Products team has been busy as beavers building a new content management system for advisor websites.
My beaver brought me to apply this technique in building advisor websites and email newsletters. I have been producing mascots for financial advisors, which you can read about at our affiliated continuing professional education website, A4A. Call me if you want to do this.