Vol 44. Duolingo: TikTok’s favorite mascot 🦉

Duolingo and its iconic owl mascot, Duo, are known for their social media moments. 

You can find several videos of Duo the owl twerking (the first of which hit nearly 6 million views in 4 hours). On April Fool’s Day, they posted a trailer for a dating show called Love Language, where 10 people share a house to find love but none of them speak the same language. There are even video compilations—created by unaffiliated users—of Duo responding to people in the comments with titles like, “Duolingo being iconic.” 

But we aren’t focused on those viral moments. 

This week, Case Studied explores how Duolingo grew their TikTok follower base by 1,400%  with one ad campaign.

The Brief:

Let’s start with some historical context: Duolingo wasn’t always a social media icon. 

“When we first launched our TikTok, we fell into the same trap of doing what we’ve always done and not really adapting to what people expect from content on the platform,” said Duolingo’s Global Social Media Manager Zaria Parvez. 

“Most of our content was product-driven or specifically about learning a language and didn’t really establish a connection with our audience. The reality is people wanted to be entertained, not sold to—and it took us failing to learn that.”

Duolingo revamped its TikTok strategy in September 2021, and that’s when they started collecting viral videos like candy on Halloween, for instance their now infamous twerk video.

Following the successful revamp, Duolingo honed in on the markets where there was large growth opportunity. They set out to increase awareness and consideration for their brand in Brazil, where learning multiple languages—specifically English—is considered essential for professional success. 

Brazil ranks third among countries with the most TikTok users (behind only Indonesia and the U.S.) with nearly 105.3 million users. TikTok was a logical channel to turn to for this campaign, since there was already a massive, qualified audience for Duolingo to tap into. 

Duolingo already had over 30 million users in Brazil but the goal was to increase that number with a new campaign. They partnered with the agency JotaCOM to make it happen, and decided to use quintessentially fun, dynamic communication that emphasized two things: Duolingo is efficient and Duolingo is free.

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The Execution:

The campaign, called “Speaking English Doesn’t Cost” involved Duo and other characters teaching users the meaning of popular hashtags on TikTok like #cringe or #fy. From there, users were invited to download the app.

This approach aligned with Duolingo’s larger strategy of giving users what they expect on TikTok and leaning into organic trends across the app. In this case, they leaned into the vocabulary of the platform in a very high volume and high visibility way. 

JotaCOM and Duolingo broadcasted four One Day Max videos: these are 15-second video ads shown in-feeds for just one day. They appear as the fourth in-feed video shown to users. They spread these ads out so that one appeared every week for a month to targeted audiences throughout the campaign, in addition to other creative messaging on the platform. 

The Results:

Speaking English Doesn’t Cost reached over 38 million unique TikTok users and racked up a click-through rate 39% above the benchmark. 

Duolingo’s follower base grew by over 1,400% and the campaign aggregated over 90 million video views. It achieved the brand’s KPIs for app installs, cost per install, registrations, and new users and retention. 

The Takeaways:

Duolingo is, in many ways, a TikTok sensation. While this campaign wasn’t a viral dance video or reality TV show spoof, it offers plenty of tactical lessons. Here are a few:

1. Organic and Paid go hand in hand

While this particular case study is focused on Duolingo’s ad campaign in Brazil, what the brand has done so effectively across the TikTok platform is married both Paid and Organic posts to grow their following and become a dominant player on the app.

Sure, organic traffic is better if you can consistently generate it, but the reality is, marketers can’t rely on social platforms to drive views to their content on a regular basis. That is why a two pronged approach leveraging both organic and paid content and distribution is important.

2. Localize your marketing

The core insight of Duolingo’s campaign that makes it work is Brazil’s dependency on learning new languages for professional and personal success. By tapping into this insight and creating content that was built specifically for Brazilians, Duolingo was able to connect with their audience in a way that a Global campaign likely couldn’t.

When expanding to new regions or considering how your marketing will translate to different countries and cities, make sure you have an abundance of data and localized perspectives to help you create marketing that resonates with your local audience.

3. Mirror organic trends in your advertising

Duolingo has become extremely successful on TikTok in large part because of their willingness to embrace the meme culture of the platform and depart from traditional corporate marketing content that stands out for the wrong reasons.

When thinking about the types of content your brand wants to develop on social platforms, reflecting your brand pillars is important however you also need to find ways to grow beyond that and piggyback on the types of posts creators are sharing.

ICYMI:

Missed the last week of Case Studied? We’ve got you covered.

Last week, we analyzed how Carvana managed to create 1.3 million unique customer appreciation videos with the help of some cutting-edge AI technology.

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