IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/mktlet/v33y2022i2d10.1007_s11002-021-09595-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Speaking the same language: the power of words in crowdfunding success and failure

Author

Listed:
  • Ling Peng

    (Lingnan University)

  • Geng Cui

    (Lingnan University)

  • Ziru Bao

    (Lingnan University)

  • Shuman Liu

    (Lingnan University)

Abstract

As crowdfunding has emerged as a popular source of funding for new ventures, budding entrepreneurs often struggle to deliver a convincing pitch to attract backers. We adopt an n-gram language model to analyze narratives of over 21,000 film projects from Kickstarter and find that the choice of words is critical to crowdfunding success. Using penalized logistic regression, we identify the relative power of phrases to predict funding outcome, resulting in a dramatic reduction in error rate. Consistent with the language expectancy theory, the linguistic analyses show that successful projects usually include words that reflect the credibility of project creators and meaningful social interactions, whereas failed projects exude negativism or uncertainty. While good word choices vary among movie genres, words of lower cognitive complexity dampen the chances of funding. These findings have broad implications for text analysis and natural language generation for persuasive marketing communications.

Suggested Citation

  • Ling Peng & Geng Cui & Ziru Bao & Shuman Liu, 2022. "Speaking the same language: the power of words in crowdfunding success and failure," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 311-323, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:33:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11002-021-09595-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11002-021-09595-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11002-021-09595-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11002-021-09595-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allison, Thomas H. & Davis, Blakley C. & Webb, Justin W. & Short, Jeremy C., 2017. "Persuasion in crowdfunding: An elaboration likelihood model of crowdfunding performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 707-725.
    2. Parhankangas, Annaleena & Renko, Maija, 2017. "Linguistic style and crowdfunding success among social and commercial entrepreneurs," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 215-236.
    3. Jehoshua Eliashberg & Sam K. Hui & Z. John Zhang, 2007. "From Story Line to Box Office: A New Approach for Green-Lighting Movie Scripts," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(6), pages 881-893, June.
    4. Mingfeng Lin & Nagpurnanand R. Prabhala & Siva Viswanathan, 2013. "Judging Borrowers by the Company They Keep: Friendship Networks and Information Asymmetry in Online Peer-to-Peer Lending," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 17-35, August.
    5. Gordon Burtch & Anindya Ghose & Sunil Wattal, 2013. "An Empirical Examination of the Antecedents and Consequences of Contribution Patterns in Crowd-Funded Markets," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 499-519, September.
    6. Diandian Xiang & Leinan Zhang & Qiuyan Tao & Yonggui Wang & Shuang Ma, 2019. "Informational or emotional appeals in crowdfunding message strategy: an empirical investigation of backers’ support decisions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 1046-1063, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Teng Ye & Jingnan Zheng & Junhui Jin & Jingyi Qiu & Wei Ai & Qiaozhu Mei, 2024. "Using Artificial Intelligence to Unlock Crowdfunding Success for Small Businesses," Papers 2407.09480, arXiv.org.
    2. agarwal, shekhar & Gordon, Anna, 2022. "Complexities for the Indian Economy of China's Growing Technological Competence," OSF Preprints fk3r7, Center for Open Science.
    3. agarwal, shekhar, 2022. "India’s Rising Technology Economy: Sources and Consequences," OSF Preprints x6yzm, Center for Open Science.
    4. Wang, Shaoda & Ye, Dezhu & Liao, Junyun, 2024. "Politeness matters: The role of polite languages in online peer-to-peer lending," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    5. Wen, Xiaohan (Hannah) & Kim, Shinhye & Bowen, Melanie, 2023. "Doing good by sharing messages: An investigation of “You Share, We Donate” campaigns and how they can attain viral success," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Felipe, Israel José dos Santos & Mendes-Da-Silva, Wesley & Leal, Cristiana Cerqueira & Braun Santos, Danilo, 2022. "Reward crowdfunding campaigns: Time-to-success analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 214-228.
    2. Yufei Zhang & Thomas E. DeCarlo & Andrew S. Manikas & Abhi Bhattacharya, 2023. "To exploit or explore? The impact of crowdfunding project descriptions and backers’ power states on funding decisions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 444-462, March.
    3. Cai, Wanxiang & Polzin, Friedemann & Stam, Erik, 2021. "Crowdfunding and social capital: A systematic review using a dynamic perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    4. Yuho Chung & Yiwei Li & Jianmin Jia, 2021. "Exploring embeddedness, centrality, and social influence on backer behavior: the role of backer networks in crowdfunding," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(5), pages 925-946, September.
    5. Chan, C.S. Richard & Parhankangas, Annaleena & Sahaym, Arvin & Oo, Pyayt, 2020. "Bellwether and the herd? Unpacking the u-shaped relationship between prior funding and subsequent contributions in reward-based crowdfunding," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(2).
    6. Tafesse, Wondwesen, 2021. "Communicating crowdfunding campaigns: How message strategy, vivid media use and product type influence campaign success," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 252-263.
    7. Yan Lin & Wai Fong Boh, 2020. "How different Are crowdfunders? Examining archetypes of crowdfunders," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(11), pages 1357-1370, November.
    8. Andrea Rey-Martí & Antonia Mohedano-Suanes & Virginia Simón-Moya, 2019. "Crowdfunding and Social Entrepreneurship: Spotlight on Intermediaries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-23, February.
    9. Anglin, Aaron H. & Short, Jeremy C. & Drover, Will & Stevenson, Regan M. & McKenny, Aaron F. & Allison, Thomas H., 2018. "The power of positivity? The influence of positive psychological capital language on crowdfunding performance," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 470-492.
    10. Chan, Ho Fai & Moy, Naomi & Schaffner, Markus & Torgler, Benno, 2021. "The effects of money saliency and sustainability orientation on reward based crowdfunding success," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 443-455.
    11. Xiaobei Liang & Xiaojuan Hu & Jiang Jiang, 2020. "Research on the Effects of Information Description on Crowdfunding Success within a Sustainable Economy—The Perspective of Information Communication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-36, January.
    12. Uparna, Jayaram & Bingham, Chris, 2022. "Breaking “Bad”: Negativity’s benefit for entrepreneurial funding," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 1353-1365.
    13. Frimpong, Bright & Mohammed, Fatima & Larson, Keri M. & Anderson Junior, Henry, 2024. "Take my word for it! The role of projected certainty signaling and certainty alignment in reward crowdfunding outcomes," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    14. Samuel Ribeiro-Navarrete & Juan Piñeiro-Chousa & M. Ángeles López-Cabarcos & Daniel Palacios-Marqués, 2022. "Crowdlending: mapping the core literature and research frontiers," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 16(8), pages 2381-2411, November.
    15. Boudreau, Kevin J. & Jeppesen, Lars Bo & Reichstein, Toke & Rullani, Francesco, 2021. "Crowdfunding as Donations to Entrepreneurial Firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(7).
    16. Lusi Yang & Zhiyi Wang & Jungpil Hahn, 2020. "Scarcity Strategy in Crowdfunding: An Empirical Exploration of Reward Limits," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1107-1131, December.
    17. Naomi Moy & Ho Fai Chan & Frank Mathmann & Markus Schaffner & Benno Torgler, 2021. "Confidence is good; too much, not so much: Exploring the effects on reward-based crowdfunding success," CREMA Working Paper Series 2021-18, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    18. Douglas Cumming & Lars Hornuf & Moein Karami & Denis Schweizer, 2023. "Disentangling Crowdfunding from Fraudfunding," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(4), pages 1103-1128, February.
    19. Diandian Xiang & Leinan Zhang & Qiuyan Tao & Yonggui Wang & Shuang Ma, 2019. "Informational or emotional appeals in crowdfunding message strategy: an empirical investigation of backers’ support decisions," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 1046-1063, November.
    20. Appio, Francesco Paolo & Leone, Daniele & Platania, Federico & Schiavone, Francesco, 2020. "Why are rewards not delivered on time in rewards-based crowdfunding campaigns? An empirical exploration," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:33:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11002-021-09595-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.