To Stand Out in the Crowd. How public relation activities effect a crowdfunding campaign for a tech-startup

Abstract

This thesis handles the phenomena of crowdfunding and how public relations effect a campaign. A real-life experiment was conducted on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. The experiment including two groups, the first one was given the treatment ” external PR” while the other had to rely on internal community awareness. The conclusions of the experiments are that external PR leads to higher awareness but does not imply multiple-effect. This means that funders on average does not pledge more, and there is no positive correlation that including PR constitutes a higher number of people. Thus, this thesis can have managerial implications that cost per average pledger can be calculated and that community building is an important factor.