The Median Post Chronicles Part 2: The Word on the Street
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Success is not a five letter word, but then again neither is Wordle, the popular new game which has been taking citizens of modernity by storm since October of 2021. Word on the street is that this letter linking lark has been the recent subject of much interest from logophiles and logo-ignoramuses alike as people the world over have been scrambling to guess each five letter word which appears in their Wordle feeds daily.
Since time immemorial human beings have been using words, yes that’s right, words, much like the very ones the Wordle app asks its user base to guess on the daily, in order to communicate. Could this five letter frenzy be just another fickle fad, or is the Wordle team really the wonder company it’s been cracked up to be? Only time and/or a careful reading of the following post will tell.
According to a thus-far uncontroversial article from Market Watch (linked very far below), Wordle, a “web-based, no-account daily word game” has been going viral come 2022. According to MarketWatch, the success of Wordle can in part be attributed to it simple interface, repeated encouragements for its users to share their results, and approachability.
Supposing someone were to ask me, what were three main takeaways from that MarketWatch article you referenced but have yet to link, I’d say, dear reader, my three takeaways are as follows:
1: Incentivize social sharing: “The more people talk about the game, the more other people learn about it and want to play, so its popularity snowballs.”
2: Do what you love: Wordle didn’t succeed because it was created for profit, but allegedly because Wardle, the games nearly eponymous creator throw it together to make his word loving partner happy. To quote the man behind the myth: (Regarding Wordle) “It’s just a game that’s fun.”
3: The Power of Scarcity: Wordle intentionally limits each player’s ability to play to once a day, arguably to the benefit of the game. Because it generally follows that the scarcer things are the more they are valued players value their time with Wordle more on average than other games.
Value proposition of Wordle: It’s free meaning that there’s no paid barrier to entry; it currently isn’t monetized in any capacity meaning that users experience no ads; Wordle is simple to the point where loading screens are minimal and the game is easy for players of all skill levels to engage with; Results of Wordle games are easy to share across social media; the game updates daily with new content and doesn’t attempt to rope you in with hours of content, rather each day only offers up one unique roughly five minute challenge.
Note and discuss the marketing relevance explored in the article
Wordle’s success story appears most prominently influenced by an extreme case of the concept of earned media, or media which was not indirectly directly monetized by the company who created it.
Wardle actually didn’t market his game at all and it’s success was in fact entirely organically brought about through users sharing screenshots of how they did in the game online and positive word of mouth about it.
What are they doing and how are they doing it?
Against the odds, Wordle, a small simple game from a no name single person company is engaging millions of people all over the world without its creator paying anything whatsoever to market it. My suspected reason as to why this is the case? Wordle is a game that sets out to be fun without any other pretense, and that’s what it is. In reducing visual clutter, in forgoing usual monetization trends, in not demanding more of its users time as though it were entitled to it, and in only seeking to entertain its users without asking for anything in return the game achieves what sets out to do quite generously, and for this it has been received well by audiences.
What is the challenge that the company/brand is facing or trying to overcome?
In bustling creative industries such the game one there exists a kind of attention economy predicated on the rather obvious notion that not everyone has the time to watch or experience everything which they might like to. Time is money, more specifically in this case the amount of time users spend engaging with a specific game correlated with a lot of positive metrics for the company which owns that specific ip, from how much in advertising revenue they can expect to rake in, to the value of advertising slots, to a general sense of how invested consumers are in your product. Increasingly over the last few years there has been a push for some game companies to reconsider themselves service providers, quasi institutions which seek to gobble up as much as their user base’s time as possible so as to bolster their value. Wordle is a game which very much flies in the face of this modern notion of games as services, and instead of attempting to keep its users hooked for hours counterintuitively limits their playtime and doesn’t even offer a notification feature to remind its users to come back. The fact that a single game only lasts around five minutes and the game does not overextend itself by begging its users to come back could perhaps offer a partial explanation as to how Wordle managed to succeed while embracing practices which seem to fly in the face of much of what companies believe is required to make a successful game.
What is making their job more difficult?
Wordle’s simplicity is a double edged sword. On the one hand it’s intuitive, and remarkably so, to the point where it’s very easy to share and engage with. On the other hand Wordle is also easy to imitate, this and the game lacks any monetization at all so even in spite of its currently large player base it hasn’t generated any cash yet. Time will tell as to whether Wordle survives the wave of copycats which follow.
How are they approaching this challenge?
To my knowledge there is little indication that Wardle even particularly cares about keeping Wordle competitive or making a profit off his game. At the moment this category constitutes one large question mark.
What is happening with their competition?
Wordle’s competition occupies a bustling marketplace of similar word oriented games which achieved nearly 500 million downloads in 2021 alone. The fact that Wordle has zero ads or notifications gives it a very slight edge over its competitors in the sense that people who play Wordle are doing so without interruption and continue to do so because they genuinely enjoy playing the game and not because they’re nagged to.
What makes the marketing approach unique and/or new?
Word of mouth and the concept of social media sharing are neither particularly unique or new. The biggest aspect of Wordle which jumps out to me is the lack of ads coupled with this idea that if you limit a users time interacting with a game then you can make that game more compelling. Daily play limits or games which encourage users to get as far as they can within a specific time frame could potentially be a successful approach for keeping some users engaged with certain types of games.
Did it appeal to a particular buyer persona?
Wordle appeals to people interested in word games but advertises to no one.
Critique the marketing solution. Was the marketing approach good, bad or something else?
The most glaring critique of Wordle is the fact that it’s not making any money in spite of having 2.5 million active users a day. The fact Wordle has no paid advertising to speak potentially indicates that its creator views the game as something of side project or hobby rather than anything worth majorly investing in which could stunt the total popularity Wordle ever goes on to achieve or even whether it can remain relevant after imitators begin advertising themselves more. Time will tell if Wordle continues to burn brightly in the coming months or the whole thing fizzles out.
What would you do if you were the brand/product manager?
I might start a blog or Twitter account and start supplying users with tidbits about what’s coming down the pipeline for the Wordle team. This could also be viewed as a vehicle for positive community
engagement. Of course this whole tangent is riding on the idea that Wardle has a plan beyond his unexpected success.
What did you learn from the article and/or in doing this assignment?
I learned the value of mapping large assignments out in advance and of a fraction of the tedium involved with being a journalist.
MarketWatch article used as source to backup claims:
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