Marketing estratégico para o lançamento de produtos: o facebook como ferramenta para o crowdfunding

Abstract

Considering the game industry to be one of the most profitable in the world, concerning the Brazilian production sector, the main challenge encountered by independent developers is access to investments (BNDES, 2018). In this context, reward-based crowdfunding presents itself as a viable alternative for access to capital. Brazilian crowdfunding presents peculiarities related to the market and the target audience. As it is still in an embryonic stage of development, the literature on the subject is incipient, mostly referring to the use of collective financing for cultural production. Thus, this dissertation seeks to expand research on Brazilian collective investment to other categories and link it to the Marketing area. According to the Diffusion of Innovation Theory (ROGERS, 1962) and Inbound Marketing strategy (HALLIGAN; SHAH, 2009), this study investigated how social media can be a tool for disseminating crowdfunding campaigns, assisting in the collection of financial resources for games launching. Thus, this work aimed to analyze the role of Facebook for the diffusion of innovation in the Catarse platform focusing on the gaming category. The number of game campaigns increased significantly in 2016, when Catarse joined Facebook, allowing the community of crowdfunding creators and supporters to expand and transmit information to a more extensive contacts network. It was also possible to observe that a crowdfunding campaign presents different moments, characterized by the reduction of risks and benefits, from the beginning to the end. Thus, it was possible to observe four groups of supporters: “altruistic,” “early bird,” “post-goal,” and “late pledge.” Each of these groups appears at one point in the campaign and admits a certain level of risk associated with the interest in a particular benefit. According to the inbound Marketing strategy, potential supporters must be attracted to relevant content. Therefore, it was identified that, as the campaign develops and different types of supporters appear, it is necessary to change the type of content shared. Facebook was analyzed as a tool for the strategy of Inbound Marketing, using its metrics (posts, reactions, comments, and shares). The posts’ behavior was similar to the financing behavior, showing peaks in the first and last moments, being stable in the intervening weeks. The reactions, in turn, also followed the previously mentioned behavior, suggesting that users only react to recent posts. The comments represent a communication channel and closer ties between creators and supporters. Comments were related to the material disseminated by the supporters since this metric was identified as a unique sharing, more direct, and effective. Finally, shares showed a decreasing behavior for successful and unsuccessful campaigns, which could be improved based on the strategy of social goals, which encourage the engagement of campaigns for all metrics.