Interactive videos provide viewers with opportunities to actively engage with your content. Prompting viewer interaction with your video puts your audience in control and helps improve retention.
We’ve collected examples of some of the most engaging interactive videos to help inspire your next marketing, sales, training, or human resources video project. We’ll take a look at how each video is designed, how the content engages the viewer, and why the video is effective.
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Interactive Video Examples: Sales & Marketing
FEELUNIQUE x NARS Shoppable E-Commerce Videos
Online beauty retailer
Feelunique replaced the brick-and-mortar storefront with video. Using
Smartzer’s interactive video platform, Feelunique turned their e-commerce product videos into shoppable experiences for site visitors. The clever approach to online browsing yielded an impressive 40% engagement rate with their videos and quadrupled their conversion rate.
Why it’s effective: You get the visual experience of in-store shopping with the easy convenience of e-commerce. The built-for-clicks interface makes it easy to add beautiful products to your cart the moment you see them.
Mango: creating an interactive catalog
Made using WIREWAX, this video showcases Mango’s products in action. Viewers get to see what the clothing looks like on real people going about their day. This type of video can be a great opportunity to showcase products, educate the viewer, and give them an opportunity to make a purchase in real-time.
Why it’s effective: Mango uses models and scenery to make the products (and the brand) appeal to the viewer. You can see the products as they would look on a real person, in an everyday scenario. Furthermore, the interactive buttons provide an easy CTA.
Nike: Air Max Dia
Nike’s fun interactive video lets you choose your own outfit for a photo shoot. The stylist interacts directly with viewers, asks questions, and gives positive confirmation after each selection. This allows you to get a realistic idea of how outfits look and gives Nike a natural way to tie in their products.
Why it’s effective: Gives you an opportunity to replay or go shop at the end.
Wieden + Kennedy: Honda Civic’s Otherside
This interactive video example from Honda’s
The Other Side brand marketing campaign was hailed “the coolest car ad of the year” and took home several interactive video ad awards in 2015. The experience takes the viewer on a journey through a day in the life of a Honda Civic owner, starting with a father picking up his kids from school. Viewers can press “R” at any point on their keyboard to view the fathers’ alternate universe.
Why it’s effective: It’s fun and unique. Viewers are encouraged to stick with the content and absorb more about the car as they watch the story unfold.
More from WIREWAX:
Culture Trip: Hungerlust Hong Kong
Hungerlust’s
interactive episode page acts as an advertisement for the complete content. The video itself isn’t interactive, but it makes great use of various video elements. Each of the food experience pages has enough movement to hold attention, but not so much as to distract from the main content.
Interactivity built with Ceros Why it’s effective: Viewers can watch right away, listen as they experience the page, or click to read the complete article and watch more of the episode. If the main topic isn’t appealing, viewers are presented with others to explore.
The British Impact Presented by Jaguar: Understanding Type
This piece of sponsored content is a classic example of product placement. The product is integrated into the content as a way of positively influencing viewers who are emotionally attached to the storyline. Jaguar cars make appearances throughout this story about typography, but the story has nothing to do with cars at all. Viewers are also able to click different points throughout the video to learn more about the people being featured.
Interactivity added with Verse Why it’s effective: Reaching audiences with media that’s interesting to them is generally more impactful that the typical advertisement. The interactivity in this video draws you further into the story and allows viewers to dig deeper on points of interest.
More interactive content examples from Verse customers:
Under Armour: showcasing a product
Simple, informative, and attractive, this video accomplishes two tasks: informing the viewer about the product and making it easy for the viewer to purchase with an integrated “buy now” button. This video is proof that simplicity can sometimes be the best course.
Interactivity added with HapYak Why it’s effective: This video uses attractive, close-up visuals to help the viewer understand the product’s features and functions. Focusing on one feature at a time also makes it easier for the viewer to digest the information. Lastly, the “buy now” button makes purchasing the product effortless.
Interactive Video Examples: Customer Education
Consumers get most of their information online, making demo videos a great way to highlight and explain the best features of your products. Additionally, interactive videos detailing product features and usability are great supplements to a customer support team.
If a user is confused, for example, they can watch a quick video rather than spend 10 minutes on the phone trying to connect with a support representative or emailing back and forth for days. Watch these customer education video examples.
Vyond: TAKING YOUR VIDEO FROM GOOD TO GREAT
Here’s an example of a long-form instructional webinar. Webinars can be handy for providing a comprehensive lesson on a complex topic. In this case, live attendees have the ability to interact in chat with moderators while on-demand viewers are able to interact with a sidebar menu to jump to different sections, which helps make a long-form video seem much less intimidating to tackle.
Why it’s effective: Many across a variety of audiences enjoy learning from webinars. They’re a useful method for sharing customer success, boosting sales, and marketing your brand. They also establish thought leadership and help you stand out as an expert in your field.
More interactive webinar examples from Vyond:
Samsung: learning to use your camera’s features
Samsung’s interactive video walks customers through the different features and navigation buttons for the phone’s camera. An interactive menu prompts the viewer to choose which features they wish to learn about, and tells them how to enable the features on their own phone.
Why it’s effective: While the voice provides an auditory explanation of the features, the hand provides visual cues in real-time, enabling the viewer to follow along on their own phone. Additionally, the interactive menu allows the reader to jump from one feature to the next rather than sit through a lengthy video.
Newton Running: choosing a shoe
This instructional video mimics the in-person consultation process for a runner looking for the right shoes. Interactive buttons customize the experience, allowing viewers to see recommended products based on their foot type and trail preference.
Why it’s effective: Newton does an excellent job of helping the viewer make an informed purchasing decision by providing actionable steps for determining foot type without needing to consult an expert. Insight into how the shoe-fitting process works helps the viewer understand why certain products are recommended as well.
Toyota: choosing your wild
Toyota’s interactive video functions as an informative product demo for their new 4Runners. The “choose your wild” interactive experience allows viewers to select which activity they’re most interested in: mountain biking, rock climbing, or river kayaking. From there, viewers are shown all the 4Runner features that make that sport a better experience.
Interactivity built with Rapt Media
Why it’s effective: Viewers can take Toyota’s new 4Runner models on a virtual test drive and learn about the car without having to go all the way to the dealership and test it in person. Additionally, the content is engaging because it doesn’t rely on what the 4Runners features are. Rather, Toyota shows the viewer how and why those features are tailored specifically to their passions.
HP Products: exploring features
HP’s interactive and instructional video uses a branching technique that allows viewers to explore different features of one of the company’s printers. The video starts with a “main menu” screen, where viewers can select one of the printer’s features. From there, they are shown a short use-case clip, where an HP customer explains how that feature benefitted their company.
Interactivity added with HapYak Why it’s effective: The interactive feature buttons put the viewer in control of learning. They can choose to learn only about the features that are important to them. Even more powerful is how HP uses real customers to talk about the features. This strategy helps the viewer understand the product on a practical level.
Interactive Video Examples: Employee Skills Training
Traditional learning and development tools simply don’t cut it anymore. Using the latest technology, the most talented professionals are adding interactive elements to their instructional videos to improve their effectiveness and learner experience.
The following are our favorite examples of interactive training videos that help minimize the learning curve by walking employees through potential workplace situations. These videos demonstrate how interactivity allows learners to apply their knowledge to solve realistic potential workplace problems.
British Council: Exploring Creativity & Imagination
The British Council uses fun animations and multiple-choice scenarios to help teachers explore how to best encourage creativity in young students. A narrator coupled with animated scenes plants you in the middle of a classroom and tasks you with helping children explore new ideas.
Interactivity added with Verse Why it’s effective: The branching videos clearly explain why your answer is right or wrong, and guides you to the correct choice. This level of interactivity makes the piece especially engaging and effective at teaching.
Amazon: Mastering Customer Service
The course, created by Ana Grade at Amazon, introduces a woman on her first day at the company as she learns the company’s five tenets. The course lets you walk through Amazon’s company onboarding process, teaching customer service associates how to handle various scenarios using a gamified approach.
Why it’s effective: This video uses gamification and realistic scenarios to make learning engaging and effective. The use of real-life scenarios allows viewers to train their critical-thinking skills, which is especially important in customer service.
More from Ana:
Lifesaver: An interactive film by Martin Percey
You can play four different versions of this “game” where you’re tested on your CPR and life-saving skills. As you’re led through the story, you’re given options at various points where you have to make a decision utilizing your life-saving skills.
Lifesaver is currently Flash-based, but the mobile version is available for iPhone and Android.
Why it’s effective:The gamification of this important skill plays up the importance of making the right decisions. With CPR, the right or wrong move can actually mean the difference between life and death, making this choice-based presentation especially effective.
PerisoniCOm: The Lift Factor Interactive Insurance
Photos, an animated interface, multiple choices, and a voice-acted character all come together in this video to make insurance shopping a breeze. This video uses an animated character to guide the viewer through the insurance process, as the viewer answers a series of multiple-choice questions.
Why it’s effective: Multiple-choice selections ensure the information is tailored to fit the viewer, while the mixture of photos and animation make the video visually engaging. Coupled with the voice acting, this video makes a typically-dense topic easy to understand.
SAP: Adapting to Adapt, Story-based experience for health leaders
Sometimes you have to know what an unhealthy choice looks like, in order to appreciate the healthy choice. This point is driven home in this interacting course, which gives viewers the chance to choose the healthy or unhealthy choice for their character.
Why it’s effective: This piece uses right and wrong to show the viewer why the information is important in the first place. The interactivity also allows the viewer to be more engaged with the character in the video and take ownership of the situation.
More from Kate Tronvig :
Vyond & The Game Agency: handling Sales Objections
This instructional video looks and sounds like a game, starting with a big “Start Game” button. After an animated scenario plays out, viewers answer questions in an interactive quiz about the correct ways to handle objections.
Why it’s effective: The interactive quiz portion of this instructional video helps reinforce everything the viewer learns from the animated scenarios — a proven tactic for helping your viewer retain information. Additionally, giving your viewer a score at the end turns the video into a fun game. Score visibility on a leaderboard can motivate the trainee to take the quiz again for a higher score, once again reinforcing the learning.
The Game Agency: Training Arcade Jeopardy TEMPLATE
Games are designed to drive more meaningful and rewarding experiences and to increase knowledge retention. This SCORM-compliant template uses the popular game format of “Jeopardy” to quiz the viewer on whatever information the company wants.
Why it’s effective: Gamification is a fun way to keep users engaged while educating them. This template is especially effective because it plays off a popular format that is almost universally recognizable.
More from the Game Agency:
CraneMorley: The 2020 Mercedes Benz GLE
CraneMorley takes training into another dimension using mixed reality. This award-winning training video allows users to learn the ins and outs of the new Mercedes Benz by wearing a HoloLens headset, which lets them interact with the new suspension system of the Benz.
2020 GLE: Leader of the Pack Training
Why it’s effective: The job of a technician is a hands-on one, making training difficult. This piece uses the HoloLens headset to give technicians the opportunity to see the inner-workings of the vehicle while being guided through the learning process by a narrator.
More from CraneMorley:
California Community Colleges: improving time management for online courses
Developed or students who take online courses, this instructional video by Michelle Lekkerkerk at California Community Colleges helps viewers learn how to manage their time, organize their assignments, develop a schedule, avoid procrastination, and stay motivated. After taking a quiz to learn their style of time management, student viewers are given tools and instructions on how to improve their study habits, based on their answers.
Why it’s effective: The course takes the time to tell the viewer why it’s important to understand the information presented. Plus, actionable tasks are suggested throughout, making it easy for the viewer to apply the lessons to their own life.
IAB Arena: Understanding the digital advertising ecosystem
This interactive view of the IAB Arena illustrates how advertising messages are delivered to consumers and details how each piece of the ecosystem works together to create and distribute digital advertising.
Interactivity added with RaptMedia (now Kaltura)
Why it’s effective: It allows learners to explore how each area of the ecosystem works at their own pace and in the order they desire.
SchwindTEC: How to make change
SchwindTEC’s course explains how to make change when a customer gives you more money than necessary to pay a bill — without the use of a computer. After the animated character shows the viewer how to make change, he gives several practice problems. The viewer must then apply the learning they just received to make the correct change.
Why it’s effective: The depth of interactivity in this instructional video is help make this an effective training course. The viewer is not given multiple answers they can choose from. Rather, they must do the math themselves to drag-and-drop the correct change into the animated hand. Practice makes perfect!
More from SchwindTec:
AARP: creating a foolproof password
AARP’s short and sweet video offers a helpful tip for creating a complex, secure password that’s easy to remember. Halfway through the video, a pop-up multiple-choice question appears to make sure the viewer clearly understands AARP’s tips.
Interactivity added with HapYak Why it’s effective: This video example is simple and to-the-point. Additionally, the
whiteboard animation format has been proven to improve viewer retention of information.
More interactive training video examples with HapYak interactivity:
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Interactive Video Examples: Recruitment & HR
Recruitment videos help ensure that the best-fitting candidates find and apply to your company. These videos help explain company culture and values by offering an inside look at the inner workings of the company. The videos below are great examples of how a company can use interactivity to help a candidate determine whether their work style and personality is a good fit for a company.
AB Inbev: understanding company values
Here we have a first-person point-of-view video to give new employees a sense of the work culture at AB InBev. The video puts the viewer in the shoes of a current employee who has been tasked with an important presentation. Throughout the video, the viewer is presented with various situations and is given responses to choose from. There are also hidden areas that the viewer is tasked with finding throughout the video.
Interactivity added with RaptMedia (now Kaltura)
Why it’s effective: In addition to creating an immersive experience for the viewer, AB InBev also does a good job of providing the viewer with enough reference and information to fully understand what’s going on in and what’s being asked of them. The added element of “hidden hot spots” helps keep the viewer engaged, as they’re constantly scanning the environment for clickable hot spots throughout the video.
Deloitte: fitting into company culture
This gamified interactive recruitment experience from Deloitte is a fun way for viewers to learn about the company’s values and to determine whether or not they would fit in with the company culture. Viewers are presented with hypothetical situations that a new employee might face in the office and are given options for how to respond.
Why it’s effective: The overall vibe of the video is light and fast-paced, which helps to keep viewers engaged. Fun visual effects are thrown in throughout the video as well, giving it a video-game feel. When viewers make a choice based on the scenario presented, they are told whether or not that choice aligns with the company’s values. It’s an immersive way to teach culture and values on a case-by-case basis.
Council for Adult Experiential Learning and JP Morgan Chase: starting off on the right foot
Similar to the other recruitment videos on this list, in this video the viewer is asked to make a series of choices via interactive buttons — in this case, to help a new employee named Dwayne have a successful day at work.
Why it’s effective: Realistic scenarios and multiple-choice interactions help the viewer understand how to make good work choices. It’s simply a practical way to understand what is expected of a typical employee and how the company defines success.
Hays Recruiting: becoming a Recruiting Expert
Hays’ interactive recruitment video shows the experience of a day in the life of a recruiting expert and puts the viewer to the test with a series of real-life scenarios.
Why it’s effective: The best way for a potential
Hays employee to understand a job’s responsibilities and expectations is via practical applications. Viewers are not merely told which choices to make based on any situation — they are asked to decide for themselves. This interactivity makes it easier for the viewer to grasp concepts and information.
JetBlue: making the right choice for your retirement plan
JetBlue’s instructional video is designed to help employees understand the process of borrowing money from their retirement plan. They discuss pros and cons, reasons why someone may want to do this, as well as important details to consider.
Interactivity added with HapYak Why it’s effective: The video includes an interactive quiz to help viewers determine whether taking out a retirement plan loan is the right decision. At the end of the video, viewers are given links to additional resources to help them continue their learning and make a more informed decision.
More interactive retirement examples:
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Add Interactivity to Your Next Video
As we’ve shown in the examples above, professionals across job roles have realized that the best way to practically explain concepts, improve retention, and engage viewers is with interactive video. Nothing is more powerful or effective than putting viewers in charge of their own path.
To help you get started with interactive video, we’ve created two starter training scenarios for you to modify and develop in Vyond and then add interactivity with one of the tools mentioned in this post.
Scenario video templates
Modify these Vyond video templates to create your own scenarios. Then add interactive elements with one of the tools mentioned in this post. Start a 14-day free trial or log in to your Vyond account to access the template videos shown below.
Vyond: understanding workplace Retaliation
This instructional video shows a hypothetical workplace scenario in which one employee reports another’s unsafe practices to management. Even though the employee who reported the safety issue had everyone’s best interests in mind, he is teased, shunned, and retaliated against by others.
Use this video as a template
The video is designed to help you create your own branched story about what retaliation is and how to handle it.
Vyond: supporting and defusing unhappy customers
At the beginning of this video, the viewer is introduced to a character named Joe, a normally positive and upbeat guy — until his insurance claim is rejected. Then, he is shown angrily and impatiently talking to a customer service representative at the insurance company.
Use this video as a template
This video aims to teach the viewer empathy. It helps the customer service agent remember that an angry customer is not mad at them personally. Angry customers are mad at the situation. Reinforcing this point is a powerful way to help the viewer remember to stay calm and collected, regardless of the situation they encounter.
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