The 3 lessons of Squid games

Tue, 16.11.2021, 12:00

You have most probably heard about the new survival drama show on Netflix called "Squid Games" and many marketing lessons can be learned from it. With more than 130 million viewers, the show’s success can be attributed to a few factors: a binge-worthy plot, a good marketing campaign, and a great production quality. It is estimated that the next series will be worth around $900 million

A lot of people have been talking about this show, but most many may not understand exactly why it has been so popular. Unleashing a complex plot is not simple. It takes thoughtful planning and an excellent production team to make sure the show flows well from episode to episode and keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. This article will describe three lessons learned from the Netflix show “Squid Games” in order to help entrepreneur understand the success it has generated.

Lesson 1:

Focus on one thing and do it well. The show’s plot is based on the novel “Battle Royal” written by Koushun Takami. The novel was then adapted into a film called Battle Royale which was released in 2000 and gained popularity among young audiences. This movie set the stage for Squid Games, but Netflix kicked up the hype by tapping into an audience broader than the core fans of the original book and movie. They knew this would be a challenge, but they were able to create buzz through smart marketing and efficient production to attract a broad audience.

Lesson 2:

Make content that resonates with the audience. Another thing that helped Netflix get such a huge viewership was to make content that resonates with their audience. Squid Games relied on a familiar concept for its viewers: watching high school students participate in a survival game, an event which will pit them against each other and test their wits and skills, is not something new. After all, the original Battle Royale has already demonstrated how such a storyline will captivate an audience. Netflix then updated this story by adding more visual effects and updated technology to match what modern viewing preferences are today. Because of this, Squid Games was able to attract a huge audience from different generations through the Netflix platform.

Lesson 3:

Know your market and stay current with the marketing. Netflix has always been hugely successful with their marketing strategies, but they really outdid themselves with Squid Games. This series demonstrated that the company knows their audience well and how to use this advantage to their advantage. They knew that by tapping into an existing fandom of Battle Royale, they would already have a core audience who would be willing to give the show a shot. However, they wanted to expand beyond these internet geeks and hipsters and introduce Squid Game to a wider audience. To do this, they used traditional marketing strategies, i.e. promoting the show in magazines and billboards outside of the internet bubble. Social Media and Tik-Tok allows for certain videos to go viral, which generates great interest and engagement around the "Squid Game" Netflix series on social media. One lesson that can be learned from the show is the multiple marketing methods and campaigns can benefit business development. Word of mouth was a great offline marketing method which also generated a lot of interest from Netflix subscribers.

But marketing aside, the key to Squid Games success was having a great production team that understood how to appeal to its audience. With the show generating so much interest, some developers even created a play-to-earn crypto-currency token, called "SQUID", which allows buyers to participate in the new online project "Squid Game" launched in November. Players can use the token to buy a number needed to start the game. The coin was trading at around $0.01282 at the beginning of the last week of October and traded 1 month later at around $2850 according to CoinMarketCap, until the project developers withdrew the liquidity and took away around $2.5 million of untraceable crypto currency. A topic that has been making the buzz lately on the social media networks, giving even more visibility to the Netflix series.

Source :

• https://finance.yahoo.com/news/squid-game-meme-coin-crashes-131908065.html
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-17/squid-game-season-2-series-worth-900-million-to-netflix-so-far
• https://fortune.com/2021/10/29/squid-game-crypto-coin-price-shiba-inu/
• https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/squid-game/