The Marketing Strategy Behind the Internet’s Favorite Green Menace

“Our content is fun, entertaining, it’s authentic—those are the facets of our brand that differentiate us,” said chief marketing officer Manu Orssaud, adding that posting daily on social was a big “retention driver” for the business by entertaining current customers and attracting new ones.

“When you see an owl twerking on TikTok, the first thing that comes to mind is, ‘Oh, I haven’t done my Duolingo today.’ This approach is driving a lot of engagement for us,” he added.

Debuting Duo  

When Orssaud arrived from Spotify in 2020, Duolingo’s advertising was built around big TV campaigns. But they weren’t driving much response. “We realized we were missing something,” he said.

That something turned out to be a giant, passive-aggressive but kind of cute green owl overlord: the brand’s mascot, Duo.

At the time, the character had already earned a reputation among users for his slightly menacing push notifications, reminding them to complete a lesson so as not to lose their streak.

By 2021, the business started experimenting on TikTok without putting “too much pressure” on the outcome.

Duo stepped into a creator role, fronting the quick, reactive content. Within the first two years, he featured in a parody of Netflix’s Squid Game; revealed a crush on pop star Dua Lipa; and conceived a spongy “love child” with Scrub Daddy’s mascot.

These experiments were spearheaded by Parvez, then a 23-year-old graduate who took over the brand’s dormant TikTok account post-lockdown. TikTok had just hit 1 billion users, and Parvez realized that if people weren’t spending time on Duolingo, they were most likely to be found there.

“Because it started more as an experiment and less of a huge strategy, we were able to keep it a little under the radar,” said Orssaud. “It meant we didn’t necessarily have to adhere to all the brand consistency guidelines that we had, or try to make everything look perfect.”