What the Crowd Funding of Veronica Mars Tells 21st Century Filmmakers: Ivan Askwith On Relationships With Fans (Member Experience Matters)

THINK IT OUT: ReTHINKing Member Experience from Ivan Askwith

Until their record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, Veronica Mars was just a cancelled (beloved by a core group of fans - but not successful enough in the Old World model of TV to justify renewal) television series.

After the show was cancelled (two seasons on UPN and another year on The CW), series creator Rob Thomas wrote a feature script based on the series. 

Warner Bros. decided not to fund the project as a traditional studio movie. 

In the Old World, that would have been it.

But this is the New World... where crowdfunding and fan participation matter.

In early 2013, the star of the Veronica Mars TV series, Kristen Bell, and Rob Thomas - working with consultant Ivan Askwith - launched a fundraising campaign to produce the film via donations from fans - using Kickstarter.

The Veronica Mars team attained their $2M goal in just 10 hours.

Eventually they raised over $5.7M from over 90,000 fans.

The film was released on March 14, 2014.

What appears above are slides from Ivan Askwith's MEMBER EXPERIENCE ("building meaningful relationships, and rethinking what business you're in") presentation for THINK IT OUT (a conference for credit union professionals to discuss innovations in financial services) held in Pleasanton, California on Nov. 5th, 2014.

Thanks to the amazing Sheri Candler, KCETLinkTV Social Media Editor, for the link.