People Are Getting Crazy Over Netflix’s “Squid 🦑 Game”

The smash hit from the Korean entertainment world “Squid Game” is taking over global 🌎 rankings.

According to media reports on Bloomberg, Bucket Studio, an agency which represents the show’s lead actor Lee Jung-Jae, saw shares more than double ✌️ not long after the release of the show. According to Bloomberg, shares surged more than 70% in the past three trading sessions.

Meanwhile, according to The Korea Herald, Showbox, a media company dedicated to film 🎥 investment, production and distribution, initially saw its stock price soar 📈 more than 50% before dipping 10%. The report added that the initial surge came as earlier reports said Showbox had financed a film production by “Squid Game” producer Siren Pictures in its early stages. However, Siren Pictures said Showbox’s financing had nothing to do with “Squid Game.”

What is “Squid Game”?

It is a Korean drama, and its first season was released worldwide on September 17, and it has already become one of the streaming giant’s biggest international successes 🌟. It shot up into the Top 10 on the platform’s charts since its debut and currently occupies the top two spots in various countries. “Squid Game” has also reportedly become the first Korean series to rank No. 1 on Netflix’s U.S. most-watched 👀 list. In the hit show, 456 contestants who are in desperate need of money join a deadly survival game in order to win 45.6 billion Korean 🇰🇷 won, which is around $38.6 million. Social media users are comparing the show to the Hunger Games and James Wan’s Saw movies. Like those films, the series pits people against each other and places them in deadly situations they have to figure out how to escape from.

The thriller provides plenty of brutal gore, violence, and suspense 😧, so if you are into that sort of thing, look no further. It also provides thought-provoking, emotional viewpoints about society, showing how wealth disparity can often lead people to do the unthinkable for money - even at the expense of their own lives. Not even two weeks after its release, the show is already sparking TikTok challenges, building 🧱 a buzz among Twitter and Instagram users, and being binge-watched by millions around the world.

The success of this viral South Korean survival drama has many valuable marketing lessons any brand can use to increase revenue 💰, proving that there is no one-size-fits-all marketing technique. Whether you like to spend your weekends binge-watching TV shows on a streaming service or not, you have probably heard 👂 of Netflix's “Squid Game”. It is one of the most viral topics of 2021, and, perhaps surprisingly, it offers some significant business-related insights.

Here are 3 important lessons you can learn from the popular Korean drama:

1️⃣ Word-of-mouth 👄 is more successful than the largest paid ad campaigns

Truth be told, word-of-mouth is what you usually read about when you are opening a 100-year-old marketing book 📖; it is considered an all-time classic technique. Some believe that it works as a minimal factor in any marketing strategy, but “Squid Game” proves that it can be the major leading factor in advertising.

Unfortunately, marketing firms cannot buy or secure word-of-mouth, so it is usually done organically. However, businesses can now attempt to trigger a wave 🌊 of trends or buzz to get word-of-mouth going with social media being highly accessible to brands. 

Word-of-mouth hyping up a TV show at such an accelerated pace is something we have never seen before. Netflix is now investing in some marketing for the series with pop-up displays, which may be odd 🤨, but it is to complement the ongoing buzz happening worldwide. The moral of the story is that no paid ad campaign of any scale could accomplish the success that “Squid Game” achieved using just word-of-mouth, and there is a psychology 🧠 that supports this.

We humans want to share something odd like this violent game of death ☠️ with our circle of friends and family. It gives us pleasure of some sort and makes for a great conversation 🗣 starter. In the case of “Squid Game”, the violence and gore that kept the script on a shelf for a decade actually contributed to its success.

2️⃣ It is bound for success when your brand has a viral 🦠 TikTok trend

TikTok did not only reinvent the way brands reach their audiences 👥, but it also set a new standard for how companies should approach their customers. Today, it is acceptable for a large brand to comment on a post without being professional. Serious 🧐 brands that take an informal approach on the platform get more attention, resulting in higher free impressions.

If you are able to get lucky 🍀 by having a trend related to your brand go viral on TikTok, you are most likely going to have financial success. “Squid Game” picked up a fascinating amount of traction on the platform, almost forming an army of viewers that advocate and share the inside jokes 😆. The great advantage for the show is that the only way to understand the jokes going viral is to watch the show because of how specific they are. This can work great for a marketing strategy. Make your campaign so unique and specific that you turn your audiences into advocates for the story. 

3️⃣ We do not know 🤔 what customers really want until they show us

This South Korean survival drama going viral will make sense once you actually watch it. It is a great TV show that will keep you on the edge of your seat 🛋, and it is rated highly by critics. Additionally, it is the perfect time to release such a show because audiences are bored of the copy-paste-styled shows now available on all these streaming services. 

There is a gap 🕳 in the market, almost a need for something odd and fresh like “Squid Game”. The third and most important lesson the show can teach us is that we really cannot predict what customers want next until they show us.

It sounds a little philosophical, but the reality is that we sometimes do not really know what we want until we are given something that we then figure out we want. To elaborate, when you go to any McDonald's drive-through 🚙, for example, you are welcomed with big flashing photos of food items meant to sell you something you did not really know you wanted or were craving 🤤 when you arrived.

This goes to show that we cannot always follow the conventional norm and depend on historic data to tell us what is next. Innovative 💡 businesses should always consider taking calculated risks with their marketing strategies. “Squid Game” redefined the boundaries of a TV show, revolutionising the way we view and interact 😯 with content. Regular content can get your business mediocre attention, but a really strong concept that is intriguing and fresh can make you go viral, which results in a lot of free marketing.

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Do you want your brand to be as viral and successful as the South Korean survival drama, “Squid Game”? With these marketing lessons and our help, you will be the next “Squid Game”. Slide into our DMs today 🤩😎!

References:

Subeh, P. 2021, October 8. 3 Marketing Lessons We Can Learn From Netflix's 'Squid Game'. Entrepreneur.

Rodriguez, K. 2021, September 29. Why ‘Squid Game’ Could Become Netflix’s Biggest Show Ever.