7 Consumer Behaviour and Marketing Lessons From Fortnite
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Fornite has become a driver of culture. It has used tried-and-true gamification techniques to not only retain its users but encourage repeat use. All marketers, no matter what industry, can learn from Fortnite. In this article I’ll break down the techniques used by Epic Games and more importantly, provide suggestions on how you can implement them in your marketing efforts. Let’s dive in…
1. Accessibility & Exclusivity
Fortnite is free. You can play it on Playstation, Xbox, mobile devices, or tablets. It’s widely available across all markets and inviting to all genders and demographics. However, you can buy certain items within the game through “micro-transactions” — skins, character outfits, etc. These micro-transactions brought exclusivity to an otherwise inclusive game — only those willing to make a purchase would have these items, making them an enticing purchase. In 2019, Fortnite brought in revenues of $1.8 billion through these micro-transactions. While most games rely on sales of the actual game, Fortnite first hooked the consumer with free access, and then asked for something (payment) of them through micro-transactions. Fortnite beautifully integrated accessibility with subtle exclusivity…but a lot of apps are free and have in-app purchases…what made Fortnite different?
2. Personalization
Fortnite allows for almost everything in the game to be personalized so no two games look alike. Your Fortnite is truly your Fortnite. Everyone loves personalization -psychologically, it provides a feeling of ownership and control. A recent example occurred when Apple introduced widgets on the homescreen of iPhones in iOS 14, allowing for homescreens to finally become more personalized. After the release of iOS 14 Pinterest saw a 32% week-on-week growth, with “aesthetic homescreen ideas” being the driving force behind the growth. Users went to Pinterest to find inspiration for their new personalized homescreens. Everyone loves a feeling of ownership.
3. An Evolving Storyline
Every ten weeks or so, a new season of Fortnite launches. The storyline updates, the map changes, and new characters are introduced. Fortnite is not a static product; it’s constantly evolving. In this light, Fortnite acts like a TV show. As with new seasons of shows, each individual Fortnite launch is a reason for users not only to return to the game but to talk about the new season on their own social channels (more on that later).
4. Scarcity
For certain storylines, Fortnite gives its users a limited time to play. For example, with Fourteen Days of Summer they released a new map every day for 14 days. Users only had 24 hours to play that game. By limiting the amount of time a user is able to play a certain map, Fortnite actually drives users to play — urgency is created when one feels like a sense with freedom (ability to play a Fortnite map) is taken away, thereby prompting action against that interference of freedom.
5. The Subculture Inner Circle & Social Currency
Fortnite created trends. The game developed its own subculture — dances, lingo, etc. Eventually, the subculture made its way into mainstream culture. For example, the floss dance, made famous by the “backpack kid” during a Katy Perry performance on SNL, became perhaps Fortnite’s most popular dance. It was a limited time (scarcity) reward (personalization) from one of the Fortnite Seasons (Storyline). Fortnite dance challenge videos started making their way across socials, with videos like this one amassing millions of views. Marketing professor and author Jonah Berger describes “social currency” as “content that gives people a way to look good while promoting the products and ideas along the way.” Fortnite gave its users a way to look good while promoting the game. Knowing how to do the floss dance and posting a video about it became cool. If you didn’t know about it, you wanted too. Fortnite created a subculture, which eventually seeped into mainstream culture.
6. Content & The Mere-Exposure Effect
Fortnite posts a lot of content on its socials. In the graph to the side, you can see that Fortnite posted 336 times on Instagram from October 2019 — October 2020, much higher than some of its competitors. Additionally, all of the things previously mentioned — the micro-transactions, personalization, updates, scarcity, and subculture- all encourage its users to post their own content. Users want to post how they personalized the game, what outfits they bought their characters, what maps they’re playing, etc. The hashtag #fortnite has over 46m posts on Instagram compared to #callofduty with 10m, or #minecraft with 18m. The mere-exposure effect is a phenomenon that explains our tendency to develop a preference for something simply due to being familiar with it. The more you see it, the more you tend to like it. Fortnite was able to make its way into mainstream culture largely because of its high volume of content on social media (and that of its users and, of course, influencers).
7. FOMO & Loss Aversion
All of the above factors play into each other to create a fear of missing out — FOMO. Here’s an example: Someone starts playing Fortnite because they see clips online and have FOMO → then they realize the clips they were seeing involve buying certain items so they buy those items → then they want to show it off on their own socials → by doing so, they help perpetuate the subculture of Fortnite, encouraging others to play and make purchases → this increases use of the #fortnite hashtag, continuing to grow the subculture → then Fortnite drops a new map, which creates a spike in online chatter → more users return to the game, posting on their own socials, which, in turn, drives FOMO and more new users. It’s a virtuous cycle. Both current users and potential users are scared of missing out on being a part of and contributing to the culture that Fortnite creates.
How To Implement These Lessons Into Your Marketing Strategy
Here are some actionable takeaways on how you can implement these lessons into your marketing strategies, no matter what the product/service.
- Give away content to maximize accessibility
- Let your audience “remix” and put their own spin on your content without any repercussions. This personalization provides a sense of ownership (side note: this is also why people love TikTok challenges).
- Evolve your marketing message — “New and improved…”, “Updated with X,Y,Z…”. Make it exciting!
- Create scarcity — give something away for a limited amount of time
- Give your customers a way to look cool when sharing your product/service. Will you repost them? Are there certain words, camera effects, or styles that your brand always uses and would be cool to replicate. A great example of this is DJ Khaled — he created a whole language around his brand. I wrote more about this HERE.
- Invest in content. Make a lot of content and create specifically for each social media platform to make your content more sharable. You can also resurface old content in new formats. Bring an old blog post to Clubhouse for a discussion with your audience or a LinkedIn post to Instagram. Find ways to make content creation easy on yourself.
- Give your customers something to lose out on. This may sound counter-intuitive but FOMO is based on the theory of loss aversion — people have a strong tendency to want to avoid any losses. So, by giving your customers something they could potentially lose out on, they will act to counter the loss.
Originally published at https://joshdviner.com on March 28, 2021.
