Not all hype is created equal. A new study examining hundreds of Kickstarter campaigns found that the kind of promotional language an entrepreneur uses can make or break a campaign, but only if it matches the right project type and funding goal.
According to research published in the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal in March, Agnieszka Kwapisz, a professor of management and entrepreneurship at Montana State University's Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship, studied 635 Kickstarter campaigns posted between 2010 and 2024. Kickstarter is a platform where fundraisers succeed only if they hit their stated goal within a set time period, which gave Kwapisz a clear way to measure success and failure.
Kwapisz sorted the campaigns into five categories: arts, design, technology, entertainment and consumer goods. She then used a text analysis tool to identify words falling into three types of what she called hype language. The first type, capability and rigor language, included words like "tested," "scientific" and "sophisticated." The second, excellence and status language, used words like "premier" and "renowned." The third, attitude and affect language, leaned on descriptors like "incredible" and "epic."
The results did not show that more hype words simply led to more success. Instead, the associations shifted depending on the category and the size of the funding goal. Capability and rigor language helped technology campaigns. Attitude and affect language helped entertainment campaigns. Excellence and status language actually hurt design campaigns.
"The biggest takeaway from this research is that you really have to know who your audience is, who you are and what kind of project you're working on, and adjust the language based on that," Kwapisz said.
One consistent pattern held across categories. As funding goals grew larger, capability and rigor language became more positively tied to success. Campaigns asking for more money appeared to benefit from language that projected credibility and seriousness rather than excitement.
Kwapisz's broader research looks at hype language across different technology industries and how gender shapes effective language choices. She said she did not expect to find patterns this distinct or with such direct practical applications for people running campaigns.
The paper is titled "Framing novelty in crowdfunding: Which words win support, where, and at what stakes."
