Using mystery to build curiosity in your marketing campaigns

To promote Squid Game Season 2, Netflix turned the streets of Bucharest into a real-life treasure hunt, blending pop culture, puzzle-solving, and storytelling into a single campaign.

Netflix hid 454 bloodstained green tracksuits, each marked with clues and details symbolizing a player’s fate from Season 1, across local thrift shops. Fans raced to crack puzzles, decode clues, and trade their own clothes to claim a piece of Squid Game history.

The result? A viral mystery that combined storytelling, scarcity, and social sharing, with all tracksuits gone in just four days. More than a campaign, it became a shared adventure, rewarding curiosity with discovery and deepening fans’ connection to the Squid Game.

The audience didn’t just watch the story. They lived it.

This is the power of mastery marketing: inviting your audience into a narrative they can’t resist finishing.

Deliberate withholding or, why mystery works in marketing

Why do cliffhangers keep us glued to our screens? Why do we feel the need to solve riddles or unravel hidden meaning? The answer lies in the Curiosity Gap, the tension between what we know and what we want to find out. When used strategically, mystery can elevate marketing campaigns, capturing attention and keeping audiences engaged.

Mystery plays on our natural desire to resolve uncertainty. The Curiosity Gap makes people uncomfortable with incomplete information, compelling them to fill in the blanks. This is why mystery novels, movie trailers, and serialized storytelling keep us hooked: we need to know what happens next.

For marketing, this means that deliberate withholding can be a powerful tool. Instead of giving everything away upfront, brands can build intrigue, create anticipation, and invite participation.

A mystery-driven campaign, an example

Instead of announcing a product outright, consider launching with a series of cryptic clues.

• A coded message hidden in a homepage banner.
• A timestamp subtly placed in a social media post, leading to a secret landing page.
• A scrambled phrase in an email, hinting at an exclusive reveal.
• A visual puzzle scattered across Instagram reels.
• A physical postcard mailed to top customers with a QR code revealing the final step.

This multi-layered experience transforms passive audiences into active participants, increasing engagement and shareability.

Of course, not every campaign needs to be a complex scavenger hunt. Even a single well-placed teaser, such as a cryptic subject line or a fleeting social media video, can be enough to build curiosity and anticipation.

Key elements of mystery in marketing

To use mastery effectively, focus on these core components:

• Teasers and hints. Provide just enough information to intrigue, but not enough to satisfy curiosity.
• Cliffhangers. End content with suspense, encouraging audiences to come back for more.
• Unanswered questions. Open loops compel audiences to seek answers.
• Gradual reveals. Unveil elements over time, maintaining engagement throughout a campaign.

Application examples

• Teasers: A movie trailer that hints at the plot but doesn’t give away key twists.
• Cliffhangers: A social media post that says, “Something big is happening tomorrow. Stay tuned!”
• Unanswered questions: An email subject line like, “Can you guess what’s coming next?”
• Gradual reveal: A countdown campaign unveiling one feature of a new product each day leading up to launch.

Practical ways to use mystery in your marketing

Here’s how you can weave mystery into your marketing strategy:

Real-word examples in action

• Apple’s product launches. Cryptic event invitations and teaser videos build anticipation for new releases.
• Spotify Wrapped. Personalized hints create excitement before the big reveal.
• Netflix’s Squid Game scavenger hunt. A real-world puzzle that turned fans into storytellers.

Common pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

While mystery can be a powerful tool, using it incorrectly can backfire. Avoid these common mistakes:

Example of a failed mystery campaign:

A tech startup teased a “revolutionary” product but failed to provide any meaningful context. When the launch turned out to be a minor software update, audiences felt misled, and the campaign flopped.

The lesson from the failure? Mystery without substance breaks trust.

Turning curiosity into engagement

The strategic use of mystery can transform passive audiences into active participants, driving engagement and excitement around your brand. By crafting teasers, unanswered questions, and gradual reveals, you can create a dynamic experience that keeps your audience invested.

What we can take away from the way Netflix turned fandom into a mystery quest with the Squid Game scavenger hunt is that mystery marketing thrives on participation. By turning promotion into a puzzle, Netflix transformed its audience from viewers into players, into a story that fans uncovered and completed themselves.

And this is exactly what’s at the heart of mystery marketing: turning curiosity into connection and discovery into loyalty.

Are you ready to add an element of mystery to your marketing? Contact me, and let’s craft a campaign that keeps them guessing – and coming back for more.

The Squid Game Season 2 Scavenger Hunt video credits:
Netflix and McCann Worldgroup Romania. Share from AdAge.