The Anatomy of a Blockbuster Kickstarter Video
The 6 Essential Rules for Your Video if You Want to Kill it on Kickstarter
It’s hard to understate the impact a good video has on a Kickstarter campaign. We’ve analyzed hundreds of crowdfunding videos in the process of helping clients plan and execute Kickstarter campaigns. We’ve been able to identify elements that invariably present themselves in successful Kickstarter videos. You may be able to get a project funded without following these rules, but we’re confident that you will not have a blockbuster unless you follow the guidelines below:
- Engage the audience within the first five seconds of your video
- Have founders that tell their story
- Simplify the project so that it’s super easy to understand
- Make the project about something bigger than the project itself
- Have grateful and authentic founders
- Illustrate the limitless possibilities of the project
To help us illustrate the lessons above, we’re going to show you video clips from the campaigns listed below — four of the biggest kickstarter successes, three near-misses, and one flop. We cherry-picked the successes, as we think they’re among the best we’ve seen, but the failures were picked at random.
- What: A PC-based sim game
- Goal: $500,000
- Raised: $37,961,356
- What: Smart Watch
- Goal: $100,000
- Raised: $10,266,845
- What: Android-based video game console
- Goal: $950,000
- Raised: $8,596,474
- What: Android-based video game console
- Goal: $1,100,000
- Raised: $3,986,929
- What: PC-based sim game
- Goal: $20,000
- Raised: $2,522
- What: Boardgame
- Goal: $100,000
- Raised: $29,413
- What: Personal Cameraman
- Goal: $100,000
- Raised: $74,881
- What: Smartphone laser tag
- Goal: £70,000
- Raised: £1
Rule #1: The Audience Must Be Engaged in the First Five Seconds
There are differences between how videos in different categories engage an audience, but the rule is very consistent — engage quickly.
Game Campaigns
Successful game campaigns begin by engaging the audience in the game or the movement. For example, the Star Citizen video simply states “They said I was dead.” That line refers to a PC game, but it’s very difficult to stop watching after you see that line. Immediately, Star Citizen gets you thinking nostalgically.
Project Eternity, on the other hand, starts with a question that gets you immersed immediately in the game. Both tactics work and both projects successful engage with the user and begin telling the story immediately.
Hardware Projects
Almost all successful hardware projects tell you what the product is in the first five seconds, either through imagery or the founder telling you precisely what he’s doing. In the Pebble Watch video, for example, Eric Migicovsky states, “This is my smartphone. This is my watch.” This idea, which was new at the time, was so compelling and so tersely stated, that it was impossible for people to tune out after watching the first 5-10 seconds. You HAD to see what this thing could do. It was successful at both engaging the user and quickly telling people what the product does.
Videos from Unsuccessful Campaigns Squander the First Five to Ten Seconds
The videos below tell you nothing about why the viewer should continue watching. After watching countless videos, we’re confident that no one wants to look at your logo or a screen that contributes nothing to the story before getting to content that they may care about.
Rule #2: The Video Must Tell Your Story
This seems obvious, but many founders get lost in the fog of war. If you want to have a successful Kickstarter campaign, you MUST connect with an audience. You must tell that audience about you, your dream, the status of your project, and what your audience’s support is going to accomplish. If you do NOT have these elements, the chances of your campaign failing greatly increases. Additionally, we’ve NEVER seen a blockbuster campaign that doesn’t have almost all of these elements. A good place to start is the content recommended by Kickstarter. Many of the unsuccessful videos don’t contain this critical content.
Rule #3: You Must Simplify Your Idea:
Simplify your idea and then simplify it again. Each of the successful videos provide a very simple message that is easy to understand and easy to pass on to others. Most of the unsuccessful videos provide a very convoluted message that is hard to understand in 15 seconds or less.
Examples of Founders Simplifying Their Idea:
Examples of Founders Complicating Their Idea:
Rule #4: The Project Must Be About More than the Project; It Must Represent a Movement
The great projects are about more than the projects themselves. They represent a movement. For example:
- Star Citizen is about the PC Game movement and nostalgia
- OUYA is about opening up the TV for gaming
- Pebble is about the “personal area network”
Rule #5: The Founders / Entrepreneurs Must Be Genuine and Authentic
In each of the successful videos we’ve watched all the entrepreneurs seemed very genuine and authentic. There are exceptions to this, but its usually with professional actors. All of the successful founders appeared authentically grateful. Take a look at some of the successful founders:
Contrast how the successful founders appear with the unsuccessful founders:
Rule #6: The Project Must Have Limitless Possibilities
Blockbuster videos show the limitless possibilities of their projects. This usually comes in the form of a new direction in which their communities can take the project, such as through providing an SDK or an API.
If you can create a video that truly incorporates all the rules above, it’s very likely that you’ll have successful campaign.
Hopefully someone finds this helpful and good luck!
About Me
I’m the CEO and founder at a full-service agency called Fresh, which gets clients their first 10,000 customers. Contact me at steve@getfresh.com or @ssvajian on Twitter.
