When you call something exotic it immediately becomes ten times more exciting. Why would I want to go on a holiday when I could go on an exotic holiday? Food with exotic flavours sounds much more mouth-watering than normal food. Even animals. Why would I want to go to a zoo with regular animals when I could go to one with exotic animals?

So imagine you were eating a sandwich and encountered an unusual crunchy, yet gooey texture. Looking under the lettuce to see half of a spider isn’t going to make you feel very good. But if it was half of an exotic spider…

Here to prevent the excitement of finding half of an exotic spider in your lunch is the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment (AWE). The AWE needed help making a video series which would put people’s sandwich bug concerns to bed, so who better to ask than the sandwich fanatics here at Explanimate!

“Sandwich bug concerns” might not be exactly how the AWE worded it. But the message was the same. The AWE wanted a video which would educate people on Australia’s biosecurity processes for the prevention and management of exotic pests entering Australia.

There was a lot of information to include. Way too much for one video. So, thank goodness the AWE was keen to divide and conquer, making this a seven video series.

As all seven videos built on each other, it was important viewers were presented with a sense of continuity between videos.

We did this by using the same colour scheme, characters, pests and even featuring similar sequences in multiple videos. This gave audiences the impression that each video was part of the same larger message.

With so many videos in the series, it was also important viewers could track their progress through the overarching story. So, we began each video with the same animation, depicting the seven videos in chronological order. Viewers can see where each video fits into the series and which video they should watch next.

Seven videos on Australia’s biosecurity processes sounds like a lot of listening to sciencey information stuff – the exact opposite of exotic and exciting.

Using simple everyday language throughout the script, paired with a moderately paced voiceover, ensured all people would be able to understand the content. But it still wasn’t very exciting content.

Once again it was time to excite people with our awesome animations.

In using predominantly lighter tones and bright colours, the videos could maintain audience attention and give a lighter mood to a still serious topic.

By also adding in small comical elements, like the pests in love (Import Risks Analysis Video) and the mountains of Market Access Requests on worker’s desks (Market Access Requests Video), we could keep audiences more actively engaged in the videos.

The AWE loved this video series and their ability to educate people on the biosecurity processes which protect our sandwiches.

So, let these videos put your sandwich bug concerns at rest. You can eat in peace knowing Australia’s biosecurity processes make it pretty difficult for exotic pests to enter your sandwich.

We will still be checking under the lettuce for domestic sandwich bugs.