Why is Among Us so popular? Take-away Marketing lessons for business.

The hype of Among Us is real. You may at least hear people around you talking about this game, see the videos of people playing Among Us and especially the Among Us memes somewhere else. Or else, you even downloaded the game and spend at least 1 hour per day to find the Imposter. The insanely popularity of this game has been proved with more than 100 million downloads in September 2020 and 1.5 million concurrent players across the different versions of the game. From a humble Indie game to a global phenomenon, the success of Among Us can be explained with the 4Ps formula in Marketing.

Product

In case you haven’t played Among Us, it is an online multiplayer social deduction game in a space-themed setting. Their players will be either Crewmates or the Imposters. The Impostors’ goal is to sabotage and kill the Crewmates before they complete all their tasks. The Crewmates will vote for the suspected Impostors. In the P for Products, here are the essences that makes Among Us popular.

• Simplicity: You don’t need to be a professional gamer to play this game. The rules are kept challenging enough to allow the Players to add their own strategy- while the newcomers are still able to catch up with the games.
• Easy access: If you can’t invite enough friends to join, it’s not a problem because Among Us allows you to find players online. The game can run on PCs and smartphones with just a few basic buttons for input. No specific requirements for players.
• Innovation: Among Us can be seen as the adaption of Mafia or Werewolves Within. However, what makes Among Us different is that, instead of sitting around the table all the time, tasks are added to keep the players active, and create more tension for the game.

Take away for business:

• Customer-centric solution: “Put your customer first” is always easier said than done. You have to think as a stranger to your product, image what they will respond to your brand.
• Innovation: if you refuse to innovate, then you have to accept the future of being left out. Customers always want to try new things, and your competitors will take that chance to steal your market.

Price

The availability of the game plays a key role in the insane success of Among Us. Without question, the game is incredibly cheap. If you download on Google Play or Apple Store, it is totally free. The price on Steam is just $5. With this low barrier to entry, Among Us has attracted a huge community of streamers around the world.

Take away for business:

A right price strategy will help you win the market and the best pricing strategy will maximize your profits and revenues. Before deciding your pricing strategy, business owners should: (1) Understand the goals, (2) Calculate the costs, (3) Do research on the market, which including your competitors and your audience.

Place

Among Us gained the public attention amidst the coronavirus pandemic. All human beings must practice social distancing and self- isolated in quarantine. Their desire to gain a sense of social interaction is obviously higher than ever before. And Among Us has satisfied the need of people to socialize and communicate with their friends and families although it just happens in virtual spaces. In a year of so many disastrous events and unprecedented problems, Among Us provides them a place to interact with people while discussing to vote for Impostors, and enjoy any funny moments while playing the game.

Take away for business:

When considering marketing strategy, the place is another key factor to watch. The availability of the products and services at the right time will help to increase sales. The “Place” in your marketing strategy can begin with the “Search” process, especially on the Digital spaces. SEO, SEM, Social media, or any methods should be utilized to put your brands in front of the customers whenever they search for it.

Promotion

Among Us was first introduced in the USA in 2018. However, the game saw a surge in popularity from mid- 2020 with the help of those promotion strategies.

• Influencers marketing: Sodapoppin- a famous Twitch streamer has started the phenomenon on Twitch in July 2020. Following this, many other Twitch streamers and YouTubers began playing Among Us, including prominent content creators CallMeCarson, Shroud, Ninja, and PewDiePie. With the large base of audiences from such influencers, the game reaches more and more people.
• User-generated- content: The most interesting part of Among Us is the fan-created content, which is described as “favorite thing to see”. Fanarts and memes are one of the most powerful social media marketing strategies nowadays. In fact, with the ability to go viral, create brand exposure, and drive the traffic to websites, memes have been utilized by many brands as one of their core social media strategies. The memes and fan arts created by the community of Among Us have become the center of every talk. At the same time, it connected players and keep them coming back.

Take away for business:

• You don’t need to prepare a huge budget for partnership with macro-influencers like Taylor Swift or Chris Hemsworth. You can choose to work with micro-influencers (people have between 1,000 to 100,000 followers), nano- influencers (someone who has influence within their community, with around less than 1,000 followers).

By employing the proper Influencer marketing, your brand can reach the right target audiences within an affordable budget and create a trust for the customers. 92% of consumers have more trust in recommendations from their friends and relatives than the content from brands.

• Encourage User-Generated Content: this strategy will increase the interactions between the audience and the business, quickly increase your online presence on social media, and build trust from the audience and improve the relationship with customers. You can find 10 useful ideas for User- Generated- Content in our previous blog.

The Bottom Line

The insane popularity that Among Us gains is not an accident. From the experience of Among Us, businesses can have their own Marketing strategy that combines the 4Ps in their marketing strategy to successfully convert the leads and increase sales. Obviously, they cannot have the product features, price, or place strategy alone without promotion. It is just like opening the business without telling anyone.

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