Making Your Kickstarter Even More Fun: Marian Call Turns Kickstarter Into European Adventure Quest
from the neato dept
A little over two years ago, we wrote about singer Marian Call and the fact that she did a bunch of experiments that helped her connect with fans and give them a reason to buy. As we noted, what she demonstrated is that it takes a lot of experiments to figure out what “works” for a particular creator and their fans. Some ideas will fail, and some will succeed. Since that time, I’ve checked in here and there on her career and it seems to be going great. I’d missed, however, that she launched a Kickstarter campaign last month, and thankfully Aaron deOliveira clued me in, thanks to a blogpost on Popehat about Marian Call’s Kickstarter campaign, which has a few really cool features. So many artists are doing Kickstarter campaigns these days, that there’s usually not that much to write about with them. But Marian (not surprisingly, given her willingness to test out “crazy” ideas, decided to take things a bit further with Kickstarter, and turn it into even more of a game than it normally is.
That is, she created Marian Call’s European Adventure Quest, in which she effectively “gamified” Kickstarter, such that the more she earned, the more levels would be “unlocked.” The main idea was that she would tour Europe and record a live album, but the more she raised, the more places she would visit and the more cover songs she would do (she usually does originals, but people have requested covers, and she was worried about the licensing fees if she didn’t raise money in support). She’s even got some nice retro video game graphics to show her progress:
One of the things we get concerned about, at times, is that people get so focused on how others have been successful with things like Kickstarter that they stop being additionally creative on their own and merely copy others’ projects. But Marian is showing how you can continue to be creative above and beyond the basics of Kickstarter, and do so in way that is fun and better connects you with fans (while also getting those fans to support you in a big way). It’s always great to see these kinds of inspiring examples.
Filed Under: crowdfunding, european adventure, fun, gamification, marian call, music
Companies: kickstarter
Comments on “Making Your Kickstarter Even More Fun: Marian Call Turns Kickstarter Into European Adventure Quest”
After studying the situation for some time I’ve come to the conclusion that Triangle Man is just a violent bully.
Re: Re:
I find it extremely difficult to disagree with you.
The law of unintended consequences
I really dig this whole campaign but now I find myself diving into my hard drive in search of my TMBG stash.
Re: The law of unintended consequences
All I have is Flood, but then, that’s all I need for this. 🙂
Re: Re: The law of unintended consequences
True, although I also find “Apollo 18” to be eminently listenable.
Marian is a very clever promoter, as evidenced by the number of times she’s appeared on Techdirt, but it really helps that she’s also a very good singer/songwriter.
ya, this works for her
But it would never work for the soulless talentless hacks that tirelessly create massive piles of money for their slave drivers.
Re: ya, this works for her
No, you’re doing it wrong. This would never work for anyone, period. The fact that it’s happening right before your eyes is a lie. If you think it works for anyone, it’s because you’re a filthy, non-paywall pirate.
Re: Re: ya, this works for her
Kickstarter is a paywall, if you’re a very confused robert who doesn’t understand what a paywall is.
Re: ya, this works for her
I must confess I am half expecting her to be sued because she appears to be taking away money from the ‘real’ artists.
Okay, but why is her music still not on Pandora?
Re: Re:
probably for a similar reason pandora isn’t available, like, anywhere.