How memes made Duolingo a marketing powerhouse
Duolingo caught many a marketer’s eye when its unhinged videos started going viral on TikTok. Now it’s lauded as the gold standard for brands aspiring to be social-first.
But Duolingo never underestimated the fame-driving power of social. In fact, memes effectively became the origin story for the personality of the brand’s mischevious mascot Duo, and now, TikTok and YouTube are key drivers of new usership, second only to word-of-mouth recommendations.
That’s according to Rebecca Ricoy, regional marketing director for Europe and Latin America at Duolingo. She joined the SocialMinds podcast to tell us how social-first thinking became engrained into the brand’s ways of working, plus how Duolingo balances a global vision with cultural nuances in its diverse local markets.
Milking the memes
As with everything the brand does, Duo’s characterisation as an encouraging, if intense, brand mascot originated with its community of language lovers.
As early as 2017, memes existed on Tumblr that joked about Duo’s behaviour and the app’s incessant notifications reminding users to do their lessons. “Spanish or vanish” is an oft-quoted catchphrase that started from a parody account which the brand later embraced. But it was Duolingo’s TikTok debut that cemented its status as a truly social-first brand.
Made famous by admin Zaria Parvez, the Duolingo global TikTok account launched in 2021 with entertaining videos that exaggerated the owl’s intimidating personality. If you asked any marketer with a brand mascot how they want them to be perceived, words like “threatening”, “overbearing” and “unhinged” probably wouldn’t be high up on their list. But Duolingo embraced it, and Duo is now one of the brand’s strongest assets.
Winning the Big Game
Social is at the core of Duolingo’s marketing strategy. Even traditional campaigns like out of home and TV are designed to be social-first.
The brand’s Super Bowl 2024 ad is a shining example. In just five seconds, and at the cost of countless ad dollars, Duolingo had to capture the attention of over 123 million viewers. And not only that – the brand set the bar even higher by sending out a tie-in push notification to all four million app users at the same time the ad aired, the likes of which had never been attempted before by their engineering teams.
And what was Duo up to for those precious five seconds, you ask?
“Social is at the centre of almost everything we think about in marketing, even product decisions. Whenever we have an idea, we’re always considering how it will live on social.”
Rather than the predictable celeb cameos or playing a game of “How many messages can you fit in an ad?”, Duolingo stuck to its roots by focusing on the weird and the wonderful. App user data said the widgets of Duolingo that were on the cheekier side (sorry) were the ones that captured their attention the most – and went viral on social – so it became the focus. And with millions of social engagements and countless earned media coverage, it was a risk that paid off. Which is just as well, because strict budgets necessitate a strategic approach to big-ticket ad campaigns.
“Even if we use more traditional channels, social media is at the centre of it all,” explains Rebecca. “Instead of blanketing the city with hundreds of out-of-home billboards, we’ll do a couple, and we’ll use an unhinged approach that we know will go viral on social with UGC.”
Going international
At 14 million followers, Duolingo’s central account is by far the biggest of its owned TikTok pages. But there’s a local account for a handful of markets where Duolingo is active, with Duolingo’s French, German, Brazilian, Japanese, Spanish and Vietnamese pages each having their own local flavour.
So how does the brand retain Duo’s iconic personality whilst adapting for different markets, where humour and culture differs from region to region?
“We work with amazing local talent who understand both the culture and our brand, along with agencies that can bridge the two…in Germany, Duo’s a party animal. In Hispanic Latin America and Brazil, he’s fun, sweet, and less intense, reflecting the humour and warmth of those cultures. In Japan, he’s polite but unhinged in a distinctly Japanese way,” says Rebecca.
Duo’s personality is meticulously documented to keep local teams on the right track when bringing the owl’s international iterations to life. “Duo is intense and passionate, but never violent or mean,” Rebecca says. “He pushes people to learn but never belittles them.”
Sometimes this means reigning it in as much as exercising creative freedom. Rebecca explains that Duo’s “kidnapping” jokes, while in keeping with the lore, don’t have universal appeal. “In Latin America, where kidnapping is a sensitive issue, the storyline was adapted. Instead of Duo threatening to kidnap your family members, he’d steal your dog instead,” she recalls.
Embracing experimentation
Like many of its peers (the likes of Ryanair and Oatly), the most important ingredient for Duolingo’s success on social has been its bravery. “Create a safe environment where people feel comfortable failing,” Rebecca advises. “What matters is what you learn from those failures and how you apply that to improve.”
“Experimentation and failure go hand in hand…out of all the experiments that you do, you’ll probably fail 60 or 70% of the time. And that needs to be OK within the culture. People need to feel safe enough to experiment and to fail.”
Duolingo’s evolution reflects this mindset. As the brand grows, it’s experimenting with more product-focused content, highlighting the brand’s mission, and fleshing out the app’s supporting characters like the sassy, sarcastic Lily by giving her a starring role on social.
“You need to listen and understand when people are starting to get tired of this character always doing the same thing. The brand needs to be flexible so it can grow and evolve, just like humans do.”
How to pull off a character-led social strategy:
Be brave. You don’t become the gold standard of social marketing without a few missteps along the way. Teach your teams it’s OK to experiment – and to fail.
Tight budget? Make it count by being strategic with placement and creative for your boldest out-of-home campaigns, then let people do the talking on social.
If you’re building a character-led strategy, create clear guidelines. Know who your character is, what they stand for, and the tone they should strike.
Pay attention to how your audience sees your brand and build on their perceptions. Relatability doesn’t have to mean safe or conventional — sometimes it’s about amplifying what makes you different.
Give your brand characters room to grow. It stops audiences growing tired of them, and it’ll make them feel human.
Global brands should still think local. Regional marketing teams allow you to be sensitive to cultural nuances and understand different markets’ sense of humour.
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