Duolingo is set to take its viral TikTok marketing to the Super Bowl.
The language-learning app plans to run a five-second ad during the Super Bowl game on February 11, Manu Orssaud, Duolingo’s chief marketing officer, told Business Insider. It won’t be a national Super Bowl ad and instead target local markets regionally.
Orssaud said the ad would be “stunty” — similar to campaigns that Reddit and others have run in recent years that make a quick splash during the game but are less expensive than standard 30- or 60-second TV ads.
“It’s going to be a very short ad, but we’ve seen some successful brands that have been big inspirations,” Orssaud said.
The Super Bowl ad is also set to include a digital component and be “something surprising, something that hopefully will get people talking,” Orssaud said.
“There’s a cachet to be a brand at a Super Bowl,” he said. “For us, it’s very much a celebration of who we are as a brand and being part of the big league at Super Bowl.”
Duolingo built its marketing on TikTok
Up until now, Duolingo largely focused on digital marketing, particularly on TikTok. The brand has more than 8 million followers and heavily leans into memes and culture through its green owl mascot, Duo.
Duolingo also expanded beyond its main TikTok account with international-specific accounts in areas including Germany and Japan. In Germany, for example, Duo went to Oktoberfest.
Duolingo treats Duo as its own influencer and uses TikTok to create his personality, Orssaud said.
“It is very much impersonating the brand into the mascot and using that suit that we carry into different events to create stunts and content,” Orssaud said.
This year’s most successful TikTok campaign centered on the subtle presence of the brand in the Warner Bros. movie “Barbie.” In the film, the app’s “ding” sound plays for a couple of seconds. The app plays the sound when it’s time for users to complete their daily lesson.
“The sound acts as a reminder,” Orssaud said. “Just people hearing that sound, they know it’s Duolingo. We really play on that a lot.”
Duolingo jumped into the massive marketing around the film by sending Duo to the movie premiere, spawning social content that generated 140 million views, Orssaud said. Duolingo also ran a pre-movie ad at theaters playing “Barbie.”
Duolingo expands to YouTube Shorts
Duolingo has incorporated new characters into its marketing, such as Lily, who appears in the app’s lessons. Unlike the content about Duo, the marketing around Lily is scripted and formatted like a ’90s sitcom. Orssaud said Duolingo’s Lily marketing had accumulated 10 million views.
Lily is part of Duolingo’s push to expand beyond TikTok to YouTube Shorts. YouTube Shorts’ audience skews toward men more than TikTok, and Duolingo is creating repeatable, series-driven content specifically for YouTube Shorts, Orssaud said. For example, one of the Shorts series asks people on the street to answer questions about Duolingo.
These TikTok and YouTube campaigns help Duolingo acquire customers, Orssaud said. When someone signs up for an account, the app asks users how they heard about Duolingo, including whether it was social media.
“What we’ve seen is that sources like TikTok actually drive a lot of users, and that is directly correlated to the content that we post,” Orssaud said. “When we see one of our videos go viral, we see a spike in users attributing their registration to TikTok. It’s the same for YouTube and other channels.”
Orssaud added that there’s also a correlation between users seeing Duolingo’s social content and using the app daily.
Going into 2024, Duolingo could use computer-generated images in its ads, Orssaud said. Brands such as Maybelline and Adidas have used CGI to create buzzy out-of-home ads that look real without the costs of creating a big campaign.
“What’s amazing is that you can create our stunts without having to leave the office,” Orssaud said. “It opens up a lot of possibilities for us to be even more creative with our thinking and with our ideas.”
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