Kickstarter Takes Over NYC in Search of the Next Crowdfunding Success Story

At 15 years old, Kickstarter has helped various projects and creators secure funding to get off the ground. Success stories include the Fidget Cube, “slow news” platform Tortoise and Issa Rae’s Awkward Black Girl series.

To mark its anniversary and showcase its role in culture, the brand invested in its first out-of-home campaign designed to showcase its history of “Ideas in Action.”

The posters will land in New York June 3, reflecting on the stories of the diverse projects that have defined the platform. Each poster will have a QR code linking to a microsite that encourages creators and backers to sign up for a Kickstarter account.

The creative showcases some of the 259,842 projects that have brought in over $8 billion in pledges throughout the platform’s lifetime, featuring De La Soul’s And the Anonymous Nobody … album and card game Exploding Kittens.

Courtney Brown Warren, vice president of brand marketing at Kickstarter, told ADWEEK the aim of the campaign is simple.

“It’s designed to inspire a new generation of creators and backers,” she said. “It also reminds our existing community of the extraordinary things we’ve achieved together.”

The posters follow a step change from the crowdfunding platform, which tapped former Artsy chief marketing officer Everette Taylor as its CEO in 2022. In 2023, Taylor appointed Warren to lead marketing and hired former Twitter executive Nikki Kria as head of communications. 

In 2023, he told ADWEEK that the crowdfunding platform hadn’t been shouting loud enough about its success stories, noting that the brand was slightly “stale” when he first arrived.

“It felt like a legacy brand that wasn’t a legacy brand,” he said. “We were still one of the largest in our space, but we needed a boost.”

Go Big or Go OOH

With the crowdfunding market set to hit $3.62 billion by 2030 per Fortune Insights, these OOH placements will seek to do just that. They will be placed in trendy areas including Bushwick and Williamsburg, while subway liveboards and panels will target commuters and vehicles. 

Although it might be surprising for a digital-first brand to go all in on OOH, for Warren, it’s a strategic move that offers high visibility while avoiding the potential for scrolling or skipping.

Kickstarter partnered with Road Dog Creative, a woman-owned strategy and branding studio, to develop updated brand positioning and campaign creative. For the media buy, it developed the plan in-house, with support from a consultant.

The locations were selected with more than visibility in mind, too, Warren added, noting that they held “historical significance.”

“Kickstarter was born in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and our first office was located in the Lower East Side,” she explained. “Later, we moved our headquarters to Greenpoint, Brooklyn. By placing our posters in these boroughs, we’re paying homage to our roots and retracing our journey.

She added: “These strategic choices connect our past with our present, reinforcing our message and resonating on a more personal level with the communities that have seen us grow.”

Kickstarting a new era

The newest billboards form part of Kickstarter’s wider “Ideas in Action” campaign, which has comprised creator partnerships and a Google video ad campaign.

“Each channel offers a unique way to engage with our audience, keeping them interested and involved over a longer period,” Warren said.

“We also gather valuable insights that help us tweak our strategies in real time. Meeting our audience where they are, on their preferred platforms, boosts the chances of them getting involved and supporting us,” she added.

Within the year, Warren hopes the platform will drive brand awareness and engagement, with traffic to Kickstarter’s site through paid search representing another key performance indicator.