Kickstarter and Indiegogo are marketing themselves to established companies now as a way to grow their business and become less of a niche. It's a win-win, as the companies can see if there's a demand for the product before manufacturing a boatload of them, and they can finance projects that wouldn't ordinarily get a slice of their internal r&d budget. Also, if the product doesn't happen, neither JBL nor Indiegogo have to refund money to anyone. It's spelled out in Indiegogo's terms that supporting a campaign is not the same as buying a product.
Bose did an Indiegogo campaign for their Sleepbuds, surpassed their goal by a large percentage and cleared almost a half-million dollars. (
Bose noise-masking sleepbuds -- SOLD OUT - (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bose-noise-masking-sleepbuds-sold-out#/)). They also eventually replaced the prototype earbuds that they sent to their backers with new production-model units... check out the Updates page of their campaign... it's really cool to see how they communicated with all of their backers to bring the product to fruition.
It's not that crowdfunding isn't a good look for a company, it's just not something we're used to just yet. Bands, artists, and startups have been doing crowdfunding projects for so long now that most millennials are used to it as being a normal thing.
