Use Squid Game tactics to boost your marketing
Anaita breaks down three psychological hooks from Squid Game - gamification, underdog positioning, and nostalgia - that founders can apply to their own marketing. She explains how each one drives engagement and shows practical ways to use them in sign-up flows and brand storytelling.
The lessons
Add gamified elements like mystery discounts or spin-to-win offers to your sign-up flow to boost engagement.
Use polls and quizzes on Instagram Stories to increase views through interactive gamification.
If a competitor is bigger than you, lean into being the underdog and show your effort and care instead of trying to out-scale them.
Weave nostalgic references into your marketing to trigger emotional, childlike memories that make content stickier.
Questions people ask
How can I use gamification in my marketing?
Put a high-risk, high-reward game in front of your audience, like a mystery discount button versus a guaranteed 5% off button. This makes it hard for people not to engage, similar to how polls and quizzes on Instagram Stories increase views.
Transcript
So let's talk about how to use squid game concepts to level up your marketing. 1. Ramification, if you put a game in front of someone with high risk and high reward, it's very hard for them not to play. And that's why when you put polls and quizzes on your instagram stories, your views go up.
One way to do this is to use ramification in your sign up process. For example, here's a 5 discount button, or here's a mystery button where you could get a bigger discount, or you could get nothing. The second way you can use squid game is by leveraging the underdog. No one wants the strongest and meanest player to win.
If you have a competitor that's bigger than you, go the opposite way and show people how small you are. Show them that you put in more effort, you try harder, and you care more. And the last thing is nostalgia. The whole thing was based on games that they played as kids.
You can use nostalgic elements in your marketing to bring back childlike memories. The success of squid game is not luck. It's strategically done to make watching it addictive.
