Want to be an IP? Copy Duolingo's homework

This article mainly introduces how Duolingo, through its unique "Social First" strategy, has achieved a low-cost and high-effective marketing approach, successfully created a vibrant brand image, and achieved great success worldwide.

"This bird has infiltrated every aspect of my life. For example, I just wanted to watch a video to be lazy, but when I saw this video, I immediately opened it to check in. I am convinced."

The "bird" mentioned by Xiaohongshu user Zhao Meiyan is Duolingo's brand mascot Duoer, a green owl who is always trying to urge people to learn languages ​​in different ways.

Although she always talks about Buddhism and anti-roll, many workers are fooled by Duoer's "PUA" persuasion. From the Douyin comment area to the comic exhibition and even the GQ red carpet, Duoer, who is omnipresent and urging people to learn, has gradually become an Internet darling because of her ability to make people happy. The official Douyin and Xiaohongshu comment areas often have more than a thousand users, and many of them leave messages with the mentality of being hunted by Duoer.

For example, the crocodile civil servant said: "Happy birthday, Xiaoduo, but please stop texting me and bothering me. I really don't want to clock in. I'm busy. Understand?" Duo'er's reply was: "Hello, I can't hear you clearly."

The seemingly unprofessional activities on social networks have brought huge profits to Duolingo.

According to the latest financial report released by Duolingo, in the first quarter ending March 31, 2024, Duolingo's total revenue was $168 million, a year-on-year increase of 44.87%; sales and marketing expenses were $19.931 million, an increase of just over $3 million from the same period last year. It can be said that Duolingo has achieved great success with little money.

How does Duolingo achieve high quality and efficiency with a small budget?

In the financial report, Duolingo openly revealed its secret weapon - the Social First strategy.

The social-first strategy means that every campaign launched by Duolingo is aimed at driving virality of the brand. To do this, Duolingo creates content that the audience will find enjoyable and engaging, prompting them to share it on social media. The team will use trending topics or connect to major pop culture events. In addition, Duolingo does not directly embed brand advertising in content.

This strategy was relatively low-cost but paid huge dividends for Duolingo in terms of social media impressions, media coverage, and new users.

How did the social-first strategy come about? Can other brands follow suit and get big results with little investment? With these questions that marketers might be concerned about, Daofa Research Institute interviewed Chuchu, the head of marketing for Duolingo China, and asked her to talk in detail about Duolingo's social-first strategy.

1. Duolingo’s main mission: competing with entertainment apps for the same people’s time

Duolingo did not establish a social-first strategy from the beginning. Like many apps, Duolingo also did hard advertising in the early stages to increase its visibility and drive conversions through high exposure.

On social media platforms, the content released by Duolingo in the early days was very serious. In the first Douyin video released on July 15, 2019, @Scott Xuekouyu appeared as a KOL to recommend Duolingo. After that, the content of Duolingo accounts mainly revolved around language learning content, such as "How do you say Juejuezi in English?" and "What Winter Olympics event is Big Air?". The interaction volume of most content remained in the hundreds, and it had not yet formed a distinctive feature.

The seeds of change were planted in 2021. Zaria Parvez, the current global social media manager of Duolingo, restarted her idle Tik-tok account and left comments in the comment section of various videos as a green owl. Since then, Duoer has become everywhere.

In the frequent interactions, Zaria found that people really liked Duoer, who understood memes and was good at making jokes. Not long after, Duolingo's first viral video "CAP" was born. In the comment section of this 10-second video with the caption "I'm going to Spanish class", Duoer strengthened the "life-threatening check-in" setting that is now well known to users.

After its success on TikTok, it took Duolingo about a year and a half to determine the transformation of its marketing activities to social first. In 2023, Duolingo officially established a social-first marketing strategy and wrote it in its financial report.

Chuchu mentioned that Duolingo's main marketing target is people aged 18-35, and the real competitors are not other language learning apps, but entertainment apps that this group of users spend a lot of time on every day. What Duolingo needs to do is to compete with social media and entertainment content for time.

Due to the different cultures and brand awareness in each market, the team will make localized adjustments to products and content under the guidance of the social-first strategy. The American Dorr is more "crazy" and quirky, the Brazilian and Mexican Dorr is more unrestrained and enthusiastic, and you can feel the obvious Latin American style, while the Japanese Dorr is more cute.

Chuchu shared that in China, both Duolingo's market penetration and brand awareness are in the early stages of development and need further exploration. Currently, Duolingo has chosen Douyin and Xiaohongshu, where the target population gathers, as key platforms for operation.

The traffic distribution mechanisms of these platforms are all decentralized, and the most direct impact is that “people are divided into groups.” Users now care more about people who are similar to themselves. Although centralized celebrities have high recognition, they cannot actually arouse their attention and change their behavior.

Sister Dao Doris once shared a point of view in "What is the difference between advertising and content? | Daofa Global Content Strategy Vol.1" that to create good content today, you need to follow three principles: 1. Talk to specific people 2. Know that the platform will use algorithms to push to similar people 3. Underwater tasks that stimulate human nature.

Duolingo's solution is to establish its image as an encourager of learning while using popular culture such as the second dimension, pop music, fashion, and social media hot spots to penetrate into different circles as much as possible.

Therefore, you can see Duoer dancing the Tik Tok gesture dance with Zhajie, COSing as Anya from "Spy Play" to attend offline comic exhibitions, inviting B station UP host -LKs- to work in Duolingo office for a day, dressing up as Chunli to attend the GQ Fashion Festival, and walking the red carpet and shooting blockbusters like a real entertainment star.

2. To grasp human nature, Duolingo relies on finding the right underwater mission

The first two principles of creating good content – ​​talking to specific people and understanding the platform algorithms – are easy to understand, but what exactly are the underwater missions of so many neighboring countries?

Xiaohongshu user PiliJe Wa answered Duolingo's question in his own notes.

In February this year, Pili Jewa once lamented: "I found that my life is completely dominated by Duolingo."

The reason why she said this was because she found that even when she was watching such a wonderful movie as "Dune 2" in the cinema, she would suddenly remember that she had not played today's card yet.

Although it was ridiculous to do the exercises in a movie theater during a midnight show, she did not want to give up her winning streak, so she put on headphones, hid her phone under her down jacket, and completed the day's Japanese practice while trying not to disturb other viewers' viewing experience.

Although she is well aware that leaderboards and winning streak mechanisms exploit human nature, she also believes that "there is nothing wrong with following human nature. At least you can learn something... and be willing to be manipulated."

Duolingo's underwater mission is hidden in human nature, the pursuit of order. By performing the small action of checking in to learn a language, users not only gain capital that can be used as social currency to show off, but also the feeling of knowing that they are getting better.

Therefore, even though Pili Je kids are fully aware of Duolingo's gamification design to increase user retention and usage time, they are still willing to be manipulated. They will even take the initiative to post relevant content on social media and become Duolingo's brand ambassadors.

In the financial report, Duolingo also highlighted this benefit. Duolingo believes that the social-first strategy has turned users and fans into brand ambassadors who are willing to actively spread brand content. On TikTok and YouTube, the exposure and interaction generated by user-generated content even exceeds those released by Duolingo itself. These viral emojis transcend national boundaries and circulate among Duolingo users around the world.

Organic UGC content provides Duolingo with data and insights, allowing the team to understand how the brand is perceived by people around them and guide marketing and even brand communication work.

Chuchu shared two specific cases. In the Chinese market, in addition to Duoer, the team found that the purple-haired Zhajie was very popular among users. In the production of video content and emoticons, the Chinese team will also respond to user preferences and increase the proportion of Zhajie.

Another example is Duolingo's Super Bowl ad, which won many marketing awards. Due to its high ratings, the annual Super Bowl is often compared to the American Spring Festival Gala. Duolingo, with a limited budget, only had five seconds of brand advertising time.

In order to create the biggest effect in a short time, Duolingo chose the most frequently mentioned image of Duolingo with a head on his butt, and created an animation of Duolingo farting, ending with "do your duolingo", reminding the audience sitting in front of the TV not to forget to check in.

Outside the screen, Duolingo screened out users who might watch the Super Bowl and sent learning reminders immediately after the commercial ended, completing a real-time interaction. This once again reinforced the user’s image of “No matter where you are or what you are doing, Duolingo will come and let you check in.”

3. Can Duolingo’s success be replicated?

Can Duolingo’s success be replicated? Can the social-first strategy be directly used for one’s own benefit?

In Chuchu's opinion, Duolingo's approach has certain reference value, especially for those brands that are similar to Duolingo, which do not have much marketing budget and too large a team. Building a brand by tapping into user insights and responding to user needs can achieve a multiplier effect.

The more important question is how to implement it. Chuchu believes that we should go back to the marketing strategy to explore its logical chain.

In the final analysis, Duolingo's products are built on insights into human nature. Duolingo's vision is to promote educational equity. Although everyone knows that learning can improve oneself, it is necessary to fight against laziness. Therefore, Duolingo tried its best to introduce gamification mechanisms at the beginning of the design, hoping to make language learning more fun and allow users to stay in the product for as long as possible.

When the idea of ​​urging people to learn is implemented in every link, users will naturally associate the brand with "encouragement to learn" and create a large number of memes. What Duolingo's marketing team does is actually just to see the users' ideas and actively respond to them.

If the logical chain of vision-product-brand can be opened up, it is possible to create a second IP image as dynamic as Duoer. If only one link is learned, it may not be of much help to the brand.

Brand and IP building is a systematic project. For Duolingo, the quirky or "crazy" personality permeates every link. In addition to social media content and constantly changing widgets, every SMS message and reminder sent by Duolingo is personalized. Just like doing multiplication, each link only needs 10% more, and it will bring huge impact to the brand in the end.

4. Analyst Comments

Perhaps all marketers have been asked this question by their bosses: Can you achieve great things with little money? Duolingo’s experience may be worth learning from, but its success is clearly not achieved by just one marketing team.

As a boss, you may first need to make an assessment and think about what the brand's underwater mission is. Does the product carry it? What are the user's associations with the brand? Answer each question honestly, and the solution to the problem may automatically surface.

Author: disturb