When Swing Left (formerly Flippable) came to us for an explainer video, their mission was simple: turn America blue by building a movement to flip state legislatures.

But to do so, they had to convince people why state legislatures mattered – a very complex, complicated topic – and distill it to a succinct, catchy 90 seconds. And they needed to get this out quickly, right before the Virginia state primaries in June.

We got straight to work, focusing heavily on strategic thinking, and delivered the finished video just in time (actually, a week early).

10 days after posting our video, it has received over 400,000 views and it has been praised widely for breaking down a complicated topic in a way that balances the gravity of the topic with levity and optimism.

– Catherine Vaughan, Executive Director of Swing Left

The video exceeded all of our expectations. It went viral and racked up hundreds of thousands of views in days, even being shared by influencers like Chelsea Clinton and George Takei.

Chelsea Clinton Flippable Retweet     George Takei Flippable Share

Strategy, Strategy, Strategy

From the get-go, it was crucial to get the tone of the video just right. We’re talking about a highly politicized and very wonky topic here – one that’s often inaccessible to non-political insiders.

Yet Swing Left aspired for their brand to be open, curious, sincere, and easily accessible to everyone.

We needed to marry the content with our brand, and we weren’t sure whether an animation would do this well or fall flat. In the end, we were incredibly happy with the way Imaginary Lava was able to translate our ideas and our desired tone into reality.

– Catherine Vaughan

Given the highly sensitive nature of the messaging, we doubled the amount of time we usually spent on the Strategy and Scriptwriting phases. We worked closely with political strategists to make sure our video would be as effective and targeted as possible.

We went back and forth with Swing Left, making sure that the script was absolutely perfect and satisfied all of the client’s needs before moving on.

Production

Once the script and strategy were locked in, we moved forward full steam ahead with the rest of production!

Flippable Explainer Video Storyboard

Due to our tight timeline, it was important to keep things tightly to schedule. We needed to communicate often and receive feedback from the client very quickly. Luckily, Swing Left was very responsive and made that a piece of cake.

The Imaginary Lava team runs a tight ship. They lay out the production process with extreme clarity, walk their clients through each step, and balance providing options with weighing in with their professional advice.

Given how busy my co-founders and I are, we needed to work with a team that could both create beautiful work and manage the project execution masterfully. We were able to get the project done ahead of time, with a high degree of confidence on all of our parts.

– Catherine Vaughan

Conclusion:

Due to great communication and having a clear, unified vision from the very beginning, we were able to pull off a video that exceeded all of our expectations – and delivered a WEEK early to boot!

The video became a huge success and we were incredibly happy with it. Not just the final outcome, but the entire process of working with Swing Left as well.

And they felt the same:

Imaginary Lava helped us take a difficult concept, turn it into a compelling script and set of visuals, and bring everything together into an amazing final product.

The video brought us a great deal of visibility upon launch — but more importantly, it is serving as the cornerstone of our visual brand. We’ve placed it front and center on our website and social media profiles because it so succinctly and creatively shows what we are about.

– Catherine Vaughan

We’re incredibly proud to have helped Swing Left create a viral explainer video. One that will hopefully help make some great changes in our nation.