Go GIFs go!

They seem to be everywhere you look now but i’m the first to cheer on the use of GIFs in marketing. What better way to brighten up the recipient of your monthly email newsletter or engage with your new social or website visitor?

The use of GIFs (apparently intended to be pronounced jif with a soft ‘g’ according to wikipedia) have come along way since their first introduction back in the 1980s. They have fluctuated in popularity over the years but with the advance of animation and the broad range of marketing channels made available to brands these days, we’ve managed to utilise them in a much more effective way.

The top priority of any marketing manager these days has to be to seek out new ways to grab the public’s attention. There are SO many marketing channels available, SO much social media and SO many people to get your brand in front of. Gifs are an easy but effective solution to get your message across in a fun, light hearted way. They manage to bridge a convenient gap between video and image making them quicker and easier to make and to consume.

For marketeers you can use gifs to simply create interest and add some movement into your images. Try creating some more obvious Call to actions with them highlighting the ‘buy now’ or ‘click more’ button. Promote a new product with them combining images and text to make a mini advert for people to see. Enhance the home page of your website and use the movement to enhance the message or story you want to purvey.

However you decide to use them, they will create interest and enhance your marketing. Here’s some top examples:

You can get more of a background on Gifs from this video by PSB Digital Studios here.