Duolingo
Duolingo’s mascot, Duo the Owl.
Duo the Bird, the face of the language app Doulingo, had reported on Feb. 24 to have been faking his death ever since he “died” from getting hit by a Tesla Cybertruck on Feb. 11.
In his confession video, Duo revealed that it was all a ploy to manipulate the language learners to complete their lessons on Duolingo. Once 50 billion experience points have been achieved through finishing lessons, Duo “came back to life.”
As we all, or hopefully most, know that Duo is not a real bird and did not plan this scheme. This stunt is just a sliver of the weird, unhinged, and absolute genius of Duolingo’s marketing strategy.
The marketing tactics employed by Duolingo are so bizarre that I feel compelled to give this disclaimer confirming that everything mentioned in this article regarding Duolingo IS true and to continue reading at your own risk.
From showing short clips of their app’s perks to dressing up Duo as Barbie, the marketing of Duolingo has changed, and dare I say improved, drastically. The marketing team at Duolingo employs three main tactics to spread awareness: social media marketing, brand marketing, and collaborative marketing.
IMO: Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing has been a large contributor to the exponential growth in followers. This tactic is simple: use social media platforms to share and sell the product or service.
Duolingo has social media accounts across various platforms: TikTok, Youtube, Instagram, and X. It even has its own blog full of educational, yet amusing, articles that assist in language learning.
The company has posted thousands of videos starring its characters, such as Duolingo and Lily. Each video focuses on the language of viewers, whether it be French, Japanese, Dutch, or even the slang used by Generation Z and Alpha. Doing so allows Duolingo to connect with its viewers and acquire potential customers, especially since the company’s target audience is between the ages of teens to thirties.
To further connect to their audience, Duolingo films their characters dancing or “singing” to the audio of social media trends. One moment, my phone is playing a video of Duo “vocalizing” to the words in the viral Saturday Night Live Domingo skit. The next moment, I see the mischievous bird decked all out in a cowgirl Barbie outfit singing a distorted version of “I’m a Barbie Girl” and running around the backdrop of the Barbie premiere in Los Angeles last year.
Through this technique, viewers are entertained by the mesmerizing dances and humorous skits featuring Duo, evoking a sense of intrigue within them. It acts as an effective hook that efficiently captures the audience’s attention and compels them to look into Duolingo. Following these cultural trends also allows Duolingo to stay relevant so that the audience never loses any interest and never becomes forgotten.
No One Like You: Brand Marketing
Through social media, Duolingo establishes its unique brand, most notably through its logo. Instead of keeping Duo as a boring two-dimensional green owl, the company brought Duo to life and gave him a fantastical personality parallel to none. Not to mention making him look so lovable.
Through short-formed videos, the marketing team was able to convey Duo’s entire life. Just by watching a couple reels, they revealed Duo’s heated rivalry with Google Translate, his competition in the language app industry. They even shared his passionate love for the singer-songwriter Dua Lipa and his wish to watch her in a concert in New York.
And you cannot forget what Duo is notorious for: kidnapping the families of Duolingo users when they miss doing the day’s lesson and breaking their streak. As well as threatening them with sayings like “Spanish or Vanish,” which was written into a song about and performed on ice. But, before you call the police and report this owl, this is, of course, just a gimmick and supposedly a way to “motivate” the Duolingo learners to use their app.
The personality of Duolingo leaves many bewildered, with people almost always asking if this was created by the actual company in the comments. Nevertheless, this is exactly what distinguishes Duolingo from any other company. Its zany mascot is not just shapes and colors but a character that the audience becomes familiar and forms bonds with. This is a relationship that an abundance of companies do not have with their consumers.
Stronger Together: Collaboration Marketing
Collaboration marketing, also known as co-marketing or partnership marketing, is when two or more companies work together to implement campaigns or create products. Duolingo has done multiple collaborations with famous companies ever since it was started.
One of Duolingo’s early collaborations was with HBO Max for the HBO Original House of Dragons back in 2022. Starting in 2019, Duolingo released a course teaching fans the fictional language of the show, High Valryian. The course expanded with this collaboration to prepare viewers for the premiere of the HBO original series. It was accompanied by the appearance of mysterious billboards around the country, such as in New York City’s Time Square. Even Duo was found in HBO’s immersive experience, “House of Dragon: The Dragon’s Den,” at Comic-Con International: San Diego 2022, holding up signs in High Valyrian to prompt con-goers to do their lessons.
Two years later, Duolingo announced a partnership with the global storytelling platform, WEBTOON. Written by Karen Buchanan and illustrated by Kylie Hunsinger, “Duo Unleashed!” tells the hilarious adventure of Duo in five episodes. If you went to New York Comic Con 2024, then you may have spotted Duo and his friends doing meet and greets next to the van from the comic at the WEBTOON booth.
One of the most recent collaborations that Duolingo has done was back in December with Netflix’s Squid Game. The campaign, titled “Learn Korean or Else,” launched right before season 2 of Squid Game aired. The plan added over 40 words and phrases particularly from Squid Game to the Korean course. To add on, a music video called “Korean or Get Eaten” was released featuring a catchy K-pop remix of the song, Pink Guards, and was choreographed by award-winning dancer Sean Bankhead. It starred Duo in a Pink Guard outfit surrounded by fellow Pink Guards all dancing before kidnapping a Duolingo user who did not do their daily lesson.
Although these collaborations seem extremely random, they are extremely tactical moves. Duolingo has identified that the increase in the number of people learning a specific language coordinated with the premiere of a show that showcased that language. By officially joining together in a partnership, Duolingo created more exposure for itself and appealed to the fans on a whole different level. This created trust with the fans and ended up attracting potential customers. In addition, Duolingo collaborated specifically with these companies in order to reinforce the playful-and semi-threatening-reputation of Duo.
Any Proof?
The effects of Duolingo’s marketing tactics can be inferred, but what evidence can prove this? Has Duolingo really accomplished its goal of spreading awareness about itself? Maybe the 6.6 million followers on TikTok, 5.79 million subscribers on Youtube, and 4.4 million followers on Instagram on the app’s main accounts alone have the answer. Or maybe it lies in the statistical data: Number of daily active users jumped by 280% and total revenues rose over 200% from only a four-year period from 2021 to 2024. Yes, it is quite possible.
Who is Behind Duolingo’s Marketing Bloom?
Most of the credit for the drastic improvement in the way that Duolingo markets to consumers can mostly be credited to Zaria Parvez, the Global Social Media Manager at Duolingo. A graduate of University of Oregon, she searched for small companies looking to hire marketers and found a home at Duolingo.
During Parvez’s first year at Duolingo, she was inspired by the Duo costume to change the company’s TikTok account forever.
“I remember walking into the HR area and seeing our big Duo mascot suit sitting on the floor and saying, ‘This is ridiculous! There’s something here,’” Parvez recalled in an interview with Contagious.
In 2021, after getting permission to edit the company’s social media account, Parvez posted her first video named ‘CAP,’ which received 23.5 million views. Parvez and her team continued to experiment with this new technique, aligning social media posts, campaigns, and other marketing tactics to be social-first. The rest is history.