Animated GIF Research
Animated GIFs as Vernacular Graphic Design
"These digital expressions, which exist in the form of graphics, text, videos and often a mix of some of these modes, seem to enable participatory conversations by the audience communities that continue over a period of time. One example of such multimodal digital content is the graphic format called the animated GIF (graphics interchange format)."
"Animated GIFs are web-based graphics that contain a series of frames. These frames can be used to create graphics in the form of looped moving images."
"GIFs are being used for the purposes of data presentation, but the expressive features of GIFs and how they facilitate communication in online popular culture have remained under the research radar."
"GIFs make up short digitally compressed multimodal anecdotes that convey the designer’s viewpoint. They provide condensed forms of story- telling, but more importantly, they are a representation of what interests the designer in the scene."
Fast, Cheap, and Good: Why Animated GIFs Engage Us
"Tumblr, a large social networking and micro blogging platform, is a popular venue to share animated GIFs. Tumblr users follow blogs, generating a feed of posts, and choose to “like” or to “reblog” favoured posts. In this paper, we use these actions as signals to analyze the engagement of over 3.9 million posts, and conclude that animated GIFs are significantly more engaging than other kinds of media."
"We found that the animation, lack of sound, immediacy of consumption, low bandwidth and minimal time demands, the storytelling capabilities and utility for expressing emotions were significant factors in making GIFs the most engaging content on Tumblr."
"We first show evidence upon high engagement of animated GIFs compared to other types of content such as text, still images and videos. We use a large dataset of over 3.9 million posts on Tumblr in order to statistically show that animated GIFs are more engaging than text, photos and videos."
"Several theories have explained the psychological effects of animation. First, the motion effect theory posits that humans have an inherent preference for moving objects. People undergo physiological changes and are often more aroused when responding to motion pictures. Such physiological provocation is often translated into emotional evaluations. Similarly, the distinctiveness theory suggests that animation can attract attention to a certain part of the screen during the early stage of information processing due to their visual distinctiveness from the rest of the stimuli. Once viewers’ attention is captured, the distinctive objects may enhance the viewers’ memory of the emphasized content."
"Videos take more bandwidth and time to load; this is especially unfavorable on mobile devices with limited data and slower network access."
"Many participants mentioned that the sound feature on videos is unfavorable, especially when the content is consumed in public places like bus, library or class."
https://blog.digimind.com/en/trends/gif-content-strategies-for-brands/
"Far from falling into disuse, the GIF has actually mutated and become a medium in itself, an education channel, and of course a communication and marketing tool."
"This animated format has many advantages for both brands and clients:
"Being dynamic via GIFs also applies to advertising and content marketing. The cosmetics brand Clinique has used GIFs for Brand Content to promote its Chubby mascara. It makes it impossible to miss the publication!"
"These digital expressions, which exist in the form of graphics, text, videos and often a mix of some of these modes, seem to enable participatory conversations by the audience communities that continue over a period of time. One example of such multimodal digital content is the graphic format called the animated GIF (graphics interchange format)."
"Animated GIFs are web-based graphics that contain a series of frames. These frames can be used to create graphics in the form of looped moving images."
"GIFs are being used for the purposes of data presentation, but the expressive features of GIFs and how they facilitate communication in online popular culture have remained under the research radar."
"GIFs make up short digitally compressed multimodal anecdotes that convey the designer’s viewpoint. They provide condensed forms of story- telling, but more importantly, they are a representation of what interests the designer in the scene."
Fast, Cheap, and Good: Why Animated GIFs Engage Us
"Tumblr, a large social networking and micro blogging platform, is a popular venue to share animated GIFs. Tumblr users follow blogs, generating a feed of posts, and choose to “like” or to “reblog” favoured posts. In this paper, we use these actions as signals to analyze the engagement of over 3.9 million posts, and conclude that animated GIFs are significantly more engaging than other kinds of media."
"We found that the animation, lack of sound, immediacy of consumption, low bandwidth and minimal time demands, the storytelling capabilities and utility for expressing emotions were significant factors in making GIFs the most engaging content on Tumblr."
"We first show evidence upon high engagement of animated GIFs compared to other types of content such as text, still images and videos. We use a large dataset of over 3.9 million posts on Tumblr in order to statistically show that animated GIFs are more engaging than text, photos and videos."
"Several theories have explained the psychological effects of animation. First, the motion effect theory posits that humans have an inherent preference for moving objects. People undergo physiological changes and are often more aroused when responding to motion pictures. Such physiological provocation is often translated into emotional evaluations. Similarly, the distinctiveness theory suggests that animation can attract attention to a certain part of the screen during the early stage of information processing due to their visual distinctiveness from the rest of the stimuli. Once viewers’ attention is captured, the distinctive objects may enhance the viewers’ memory of the emphasized content."
"Videos take more bandwidth and time to load; this is especially unfavorable on mobile devices with limited data and slower network access."
"Many participants mentioned that the sound feature on videos is unfavorable, especially when the content is consumed in public places like bus, library or class."
https://blog.digimind.com/en/trends/gif-content-strategies-for-brands/
"Far from falling into disuse, the GIF has actually mutated and become a medium in itself, an education channel, and of course a communication and marketing tool."
"This animated format has many advantages for both brands and clients:
- It is lighter and easier to implement than video
- It easily captures attention at the heart message or item
- It has strong capacity for virality
- It can capture a younger audience
- It is ideal to advising, educating and explaining slightly adapted concepts in a few words or an image.
- It allows users to engage either spontaneously or through creative campaigns."
"Another interesting opportunity rapidly growing for brands is the educational potential of GIFs"
https://www.adherecreative.com/blog/top-10-influential-social-media-marketing-campaigns-of-2016
"For starters, the use of videos as a medium has really taken off. User-generated content for brand storytelling is another 2016 trend that will probably be here to stay."
"If there were any doubts about just how powerful social media can be as an influential tool, they sure shattered this year."
https://www.adherecreative.com/blog/top-10-influential-social-media-marketing-campaigns-of-2016
"For starters, the use of videos as a medium has really taken off. User-generated content for brand storytelling is another 2016 trend that will probably be here to stay."
"Show don't tell."
"If there were any doubts about just how powerful social media can be as an influential tool, they sure shattered this year."