A brand prominence perspective on crowdfunding success for aftermarket offerings: the role of textual and visual brand elements

Purpose Adopting a brand prominence perspective, this study aims to examine how textual and visual brand elements influence the success of crowdfunding campaigns for aftermarket offerings. Design/methodology/approach A Python-based Web scraper was used to collect data from 620 crowdfunding campaigns for aftermarket offerings hosted on Kickstarter. The linguistic inquiry and word count application programing interface was then used to analyze the linguistic aspects of these campaigns. A fixed effects regression model was used to evaluate the hypotheses. Findings Textual and visual brand prominence are positively associated with campaign success. Further, with some variations, both types of brand prominence augment the positive effects of narrative and graphic design elements on campaign success. Research limitations/implications This study makes novel theoretical contributions to the literature on branding, crowdfunding and aftermarket products. The results also provide practical insights to aftermarket enterprises on creating compelling crowdfunding campaigns. Originality/value By analyzing the direct and synergistic effects of branding, narrative and graphic design elements on crowdfunding success, this study extends various literature streams and identifies several future research opportunities.