Kickstarting New Content

Some of the most successful crowdfunding programs to date have been those supporting the creation of new content based on classic characters:

• Aardman Animations ran a campaign to relaunch Morph, a stop-motion-animated character that had not appeared on television for 15 years. It generated £110,000 ($158,390) to fund 15 one-minute episodes for YouTube; U.K. children’s channel CBBC is now running a Morph TV series.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), a cult-favorite TV show that ran from 1988 to 1999, raised more than $5 million in its effort, more than double its goal. The money is being used to fund 14 new episodes of the live-action series, in which a human and his robot friends humorously comment on movies that viewers watch with them.
• Anderson Entertainment used crowdfunding to obtain resources for a new TV series based on Thunderbirds, a classic animation property featuring marionettes, which had been off the air for 20 years. The campaign raised £88,931 ($128,056).
• RR Kidz earned more than $5 million to expand its digital reboot of the classic TV series Reading Rainbow in the form of an app for the iPad and Kindle Fire. The app had been available for two years, but founder and host LeVar Burton wanted to provide a free version for classrooms as well as expand to new platforms such as Android, Xbox, and Roku.

All of these initiatives took place on Kickstarter, and all the properties are available for licensing.

Aside from relaunches of classic entertainment and characters, some licensors of current properties are also successfully using crowdfunding to create new content. The comic panel Simon’s Cat was able fund its first full-color film, Off to the Vet, by attracting £310,734 ($447,441) on Indiegogo; Frederator Studios collected $872,133 on Kickstarter for Bee and PuppyCat: The Series; and Panda-a-Panda, a Hong Kong comic panel that is expanding internationally through Jazwares’ Jazwings innovation program, generated $47,540 on Kickstarter for new stop-motion animation.

If you will be at Licensing Expo and are interested in learning how the licensing community uses crowdfunding as a tool for marketing, product development, and fundraising, check out “Crowdfunding: A How-To for Licensors and Licensees,” a Licensing University presentation scheduled for June 21 from 2:45 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Panelists will include Rob Goodchild, head of licensing for Aardman; Dan Goodsell, the creator of The Imaginary World of Mr. Toast and winner of the Hasbro Next Great Game Challenge; and Erik Dahlman, CEO of Albino Dragon, who has overseen many successful licensed-product crowdfunding campaigns. Karen Raugust will moderate.