Abstract/Summary

Purpose – Crowdfunding has become a significant way of funding independent film. However, undertaking a campaign can be time consuming and risky. The purpose of this paper is to understand the predictors likely to produce a film campaign that meets its funding goal. Design/methodology/approach – This study analyses 100 creative crowdfunding campaigns within the film and video category on crowdfunding website Kickstarter. Campaigns were analysed in relation to a number of variables, followed by a discriminant analysis to highlight the main predictors of crowdfunding success. Findings – This study finds key predictors of crowdfunding success and investigates differences between successful and failed crowdfunding campaigns. The attributes of these predictors lead us to question the long-term ability of crowdfunding to aid companies poorer in terms of time, financial and personnel resources, and therefore arguably in the greatest need of crowdfunding platforms. Practical implications – The findings provide insight to practitioners considering the crowdfunding approach and offers knowledge and recommendations so as to avoid what can be naïve and costly mistakes. The findings highlight that crowdfunding should not be considered lightly and can be a considerable investment of resources to be successful. Originality/value – The analysis of crowdfunding campaigns provides details on the significant predictors of crowdfunding success particularly relevant to creative campaigns. The findings provide a critique of previous claims about the benefit of crowdfunding for creative SMEs.