Were you a fan of the popular naughties TV series Veronica Mars? Were you a devastated detective when it ended after only three spectacular seasons? I bet you were screaming when you found out they were making a movie!
But how did that movie come about?
Fans from all over the world came together and donated $5.2 million so that Veronica could be on our screens again! They did this through a website called Kickstarter, which is a crowdfunding website. The original campaign was for only $2 million, and fans raised that within 12 hours – I guess we all really wanted that movie!
Crowdfunding is the way we fundraise in the digital age. It allowed Rob Thomas (the Veronica Mars director and co-writer) to ask those who would be watching the movie to fund it. That’s pretty cool!
There are a few options:
- If you don’t reach your goal, you don’t keep any of the money raised
- You pay a 5% fee when you reach your goal
It all sounds pretty easy – but it’s actually rather difficult. The Veronica Mars campaign was one of the most popular and most successful. For smaller projects, organisers have to constantly watch their space and hope it will work.
This got me thinking – what else do we all put in a little to achieve a great outcome?
The first thing that comes to mind is Wikipedia! Wikipedia operates by allowing the everyday public to collaboratively add information and content to their site. This is called a type of ‘eBusiness Model’ called a Community Model.
Similarly to Kickstarter, Wikipedia makes money and operates through the donations of the very people who use it!
Hopefully producers keep using Kickstarter and we see a One Tree Hill movie soon! #ComeBackLucasAndPeyton
Sources:
“Kickstarter funding brings ‘Veronica Mars’ movie to life” – http://www.cnbc.com/2014/03/12/
“Fundraising in a Digital World” – http://search.lib.monash.edu/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?ct=display&fn=search&doc=TN_proquest1283786249&indx=1&recIds=TN_proquest1283786249&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&dscnt=0&vid=MON&highlight=true&institution=MUA&tab=default_tab&query2=corwdfunding&dstmp=1457660578364&frbrVersion=&query=any%2Ccontains%2Ccorwdfunding&vl(41902380UI0)=any&search_scope=au_everything&scp.scps=scope%3A%28catelec%29%2Cscope%3A%28catau%29%2Cscope%3A%28MUA%29%2Cscope%3A%28catcarm%29%2Cscope%3A%28mulo%29%2Cprimo_central_multiple_fe&bulkSize=10&displayField=title&dym=true&vl(freeText0)=corwdfunding&tabs=viewOnlineTab&gathStatTab=true
marketingspeaksblog 
That’s really interesting that it met its kickstarter goal in just 12 hours! Clearly the franchise has some die hard fans. I’d be curious to know what sort of revenue this movie made and how many people actually went to see it following the release.
The risk I see with a lot of kickstarters is that the final produce isn’t as good as the funders would like it to be, or at worst, it simply doesn’t get made. While crowdfunding can have a positive impact for the people who are most passionate about the idea, casual funders who are simply donating in order to ‘purchase’ some reward or another can be left behind if the final product isn’t up to snuff. See: the time people crowdfunded a potato salad
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According to a little bit of research, worldwide the movie made $3,485,383 from the box office and a further $4,730,140 from DVD and Blu-Ray sales. It wasn’t released in all cinemas – only select.
I completely understand where you are coming from with regards to the final product not being as great as the ideas were when dealing with crowd funding. The issue I see is that you have to have a winning idea…but often winning ideas don’t struggle to get funding meaning they might not have to resort to crowd funding. This means that many of the projects may not be getting funding elsewhere for a reason.
Further, you already know you have an audience when you crowd fund…and they have expectations you need to live up to. It could just be a disappointing process for everyone.
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