Duolingo customers who opened their app on Feb. 11 discovered the acquainted inexperienced owl mascot useless – tongue out, eyes changed with cartoonish Xs.
It wasn’t a easy brand tweak. It marked the beginning of some of the weird and viral campaigns within the language app’s 14-year historical past.
Most acknowledged the drama as a intelligent advertising stunt – the most recent calculated transfer by Duolingo to dominate web tradition.
What the general public didn’t see was the frantic, behind-the-scenes work by Duolingo’s media relations group, who had simply three enterprise days to construct and launch an outreach plan. They dropped every thing, even different international campaigns, like a partnership with McDonald’s Brazil, to make the second work.
Monica Earle, Duolingo’s director of PR, credit the marketing campaign’s success to disaster comms coaching and powerful collaboration, which helped them pull off their largest earned media second but, even surpassing the thrill round their 2021 IPO.
“Working for a model that goes as viral as Duolingo typically seems like working comms via a disaster,” mentioned Earle. “It’s much less irritating than an actual, reputable disaster, clearly, however you continue to must be able to adapt rapidly.”
Transfer quick and break stuff (with a Cybertruck)
The concept emerged from rising alignment between Duolingo’s product and advertising groups.
“We don’t wish to promote the product on social media via conventional advertising,” mentioned Earle, who joined the corporate in 2021. “We’re discovering extra pure methods to deliver the app and social presence nearer collectively.”
That included syncing app icon modifications with advertising campaigns. Seasonal tweaks, like a sickly Duo throughout flu season, had labored earlier than.
This time, CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn pushed for one thing extra excessive: “Make it enjoyable. Make it bizarre.” After a number of iterations, he pushed once more: “Make it weirder.”
That’s when the now-iconic picture of a dull Duo was born.
By Thursday, a brainstorm led to a whodunnit idea. By Friday, the group produced a deck of concepts. By Tuesday, a black memorial-style card went stay on social media.
“There wasn’t plenty of time for strategic PR planning,” Earle mentioned. The media was looped in late, uncommon for main campaigns, and needed to rapidly pen a eulogy-style assertion for a TikTok, full with Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” enjoying over it.
Watch on TikTok
The publish exploded: 144 million views on X, 558,000 likes and 20,000 feedback on TikTok. Dua Lipa, a frequent collaborator with Duolingo who was talked about within the publish, reshared the message organically, which generated one other 22 million views.
For the skin world, the assertion aimed to maintain individuals interested in what occurred to Duo. Behind the scenes, although, the group hadn’t but determined how he died. As an alternative, they crowdsourced theories: Was it Drake? MrBeast?
In the end, they landed on Duo being hit by a Cybertruck, “as a result of it’s simply so ridiculous,” Earle mentioned, however they stored the driving force a thriller to maintain the joke going.
All through, the group caught to a key philosophy: “The feedback are your subsequent (media) transient,” mentioned Earle.
Coping with the media
Working with company associate Edelman, the group segmented outreach into leisure, advertising and shopper information, prioritizing the highest 20 broadcast stations to develop past digital attain.
“I feel everyone Gen Z and youthful Millennials are sort of tuned into the web,” she mentioned. “Older generations are nonetheless studying legacy media, watching native broadcast information, so we needed to ensure we introduced this story there as effectively.”
However a lot of the work took on a reactionary tone. As soon as Duo’s “demise” went public, media inquiries poured in: “Wait, is that this actual?”
The story broke into native information and popular culture fixtures like “Final Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Information retailers world wide printed 450 articles about Duo’s demise, and 60% of these got here from what Duolingo defines as “top-tier” publications. Earle outlined “top-tier” as a extremely ranked, respected outlet that gave Duo a full characteristic, not only a point out.
As a result of the marketing campaign advanced quickly, the group stored issues obscure of their messaging. They drafted an official assertion: “We will affirm the statements in our current social posts are true. It’s with nice sorrow that we announce the passing of our beloved mascot, Duo the Owl. For years, he tirelessly reminded hundreds of thousands to do their language classes—typically with mild nudges, typically with sheer, unhinged persistence. However even essentially the most relentless of birds can solely take a lot. Our app icon displays this tragic loss with ‘Lifeless Duo.’”
When requested if it was a rebrand, Duolingo’s normal response was: “I can affirm this isn’t a rebrand and is a part of a model advertising second.”
“We knew it wasn’t a rebrand, however we have been getting a ton of press inquiries,” Earle mentioned. “I wrote an announcement that confirmed, sure, he’s useless, but in addition left the door open.”
The group additionally ready an FAQ part on its web site to keep up the playful narrative, particularly for kids who requested questions.
To the important thing query – “Will Duo come again?” – Earle cleverly responded, “Legends by no means really die,” hinting at a future resurrection with out giving particulars away that might spoil the enjoyable.
Managing danger in actual time
Regardless of the thrill, Earle labored fastidiously to handle international sensitivities. In Japan, for instance, Duo by no means “died,” he was merely “useless drained.”
Earle described working with native places of work to navigate cultural nuances as vital.
Internally, the group debated responses too. One of many largest tweets was a cheeky reply to X’s tribute: “Each killed by a Cybertruck,” referencing each Duo and X’s former blue fowl brand.
Earlier than posting, Earle consulted authorized. Since X had posted and tagged Duolingo, authorized gave the inexperienced mild. However Earle additionally flagged the chance to buyer assist, which handles service inquiries via X.
“I used to be nervous,” Earle admitted. “I mentioned, ‘Let’s simply be sure that our buyer assist group is conscious, as a result of this might backfire.’”
Turning buzz into lasting engagement
The Duolingo engineering group rapidly created a “Deliver Again Duo” touchdown web page, inviting customers to collectively earn 50 billion XP via language apply to resurrect Duo.
All of it tied again to Duolingo’s philosophy: “Studying is difficult, so make it enjoyable — and make it bizarre,” as von Ahn typically says.
Earle that Duolingo doesn’t create “buzz for the sake of buzz.” All of it has to drive tangible enterprise outcomes.
The PR group tracked article quantity, assigned values to media placements and in contrast outcomes to benchmarks from previous milestones. Native TV information stations lined Duo’s revival in 13 segments together with main DMAs corresponding to Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. NPR printed a written characteristic, following preliminary protection of Duo’s passing which aired on the radio throughout nationwide associates.
However Earle emphasised that PR’s actual position isn’t simply headlines, it’s driving app engagements. Duolingo’s re-engagement and product advertising groups work collectively on a full technique to win again lapsed customers, utilizing push notifications, e mail advertising and viral social campaigns like this one.
“We take a look at that elevate after which ask, is it only a spike, or is it a spike that sustains?” mentioned Earle.
The marketing campaign produced a elevate in each new and returning customers. Critically, Duolingo’s inner analytics group tracked not simply spikes however whether or not it sustained engagement.
Duolingo will share these particulars than its subsequent earnings report on Might 1.
“I actually don’t understand how we’ll prime this one,” Earle joked. “I assume we’ll all simply have to attend and see.”
Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Day by day. Comply with him on LinkedIn.
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