If you could use one brand to describe unhinged marketing, chances are you’d say Duolingo.
Duolingo, the worlds #1 language learning app, has earned the title for best brand mascot. Due to their social content strategy, every stunt and campaign they ran further developed their brand personality. Duo the owl is more than meets the eye, and with their recent release of “The Duolingo Handbook,” it makes the perfect sense why Duolingo rose to the top.
No one can do unhinged marketing like Duolingo, but here are a couple of tips that you can take from their social strategy.
Wholesome and Unhinged
Duolingo recently released their own handbook, breaking down the formula of their success story. From the beginning, Duolingo invested in a long-term product. They knew it was going to take time to perfect their product, so they built a quality team and bet on technology, knowing it would improve as the years went by.
By setting the bar for their app and constantly experimenting to make sure everything functions and is up to date, they were able to commit to making it fun. With a capable and competent team, Duolingo ultimately came to the conclusion that balancing wholesome and unhinged content worked for them. They had the space to create and express their creativity. They experimented with different formats and tones only to perfect the angle that worked for them.
They recognize that their humor is subjective and sometimes polarizing, but to the people who get the joke behind their stunts, they love Duolingo even more. They’ve honed that personality and made it their passion to keep it going, even if their humor doesn’t appeal to everyone. This is what helps reflect Duolingo’s authenticity. Nowadays, it’s more important for consumers to see brands stick to their own humor and not fit in a box that isn’t made for them.
Once their mascot was introduced to their socials, Duo became permanent and the lore began. Duo is known to be menacing, threatening, but also “cute and cuddly” as long as you finish your lessons and don’t break your streak. Brand personality ties back to the intent of their app – to teach people a new language. Duo stays on top of the fandom to make sure everyone is completing their lessons.
Zaria Parvez: Social-First Strategy
Social media manager Zaria Parvez started at Duolingo in 2020 to lead the brand’s social channels and quickly became the voice that we all know and love.
When she first started, it was a team effort as engineers, data scientists, and even front desk security participated in her videos. The support from her team brought the Duolingo vision to life, bringing forward storylines like Duolingo hating on people for using Google Translate, his obsessions with Dua Lipa, and many more.
After many of their social stunts went viral, Duolingo switched to a social-first strategy, seeing the impact of their content on channels like TikTok and Instagram. Storytelling became the forefront of their strategy to build up the plot for who Duo is and what he means to those who follow him or use the app. That’s why prioritizing social channels was favored over traditional TV commercials and ads. They can see the growth and impact of their content in real time on their socials, and they can take those learnings to further improve their strategy and grow as a brand.
As Duolingo’s unhinged and wholesome marketing angle grew popular, Gen Z were the ones who consumed their content the most. Following Duolingo for its shock-value and attention-grabbing content developed a lore and fandom for the green owl. People understand the inside jokes, comments like their in on the storyline, and participate in any stunt they execute.
One key takeaway from their social-first strategy is how often they respond to people in the comments section. There is never a video where Duolingo doesn’t respond to at least one comment, and the responses further the brand personality even more. Oftentimes the tone of their replies are menacing and threatening.
The comment that started it all was when the United Kingdom TikTok account commented and Duolingo replied by calling them a colonizer. This was the first step towards users recognizing what kind of brand Duolingo really is.
Breaking Down Duolingo’s Social Stunts
2024 was a wild year for Duolingo, marking some of their biggest social stunts yet. From making a fake website to producing music videos, here’s a timeline of some of Duolingo’s most impactful social stunts.
Duolingo Superbowl Ad
In 2025, Superbowl ads cost, on average, $8 million dollars, which is estimated to be about $266K per second for a 30-second ad. Duolingo didn’t want to pay for those 30 seconds. Instead, they opted for a 5-second ad and a push notification to be aired at the same time.
This stunt introduced multi-screen experience ads to the Superbowl and was quite possibly one of the most memorable Superbowl ads ever. While their 5-second ad aired, their team perfectly timed a push notification to those who have the app downloaded from Duolingo’s butt saying, “Do your Duolingo.”
What’s so groundbreaking about this ad is that for a fraction of the cost, their ad was one of the most talked about compared to other 30-second ads that brands paid millions of dollars for. It was an accurate description of Duolingo —- unhinged and unexpected. Their efforts paid off, proving that you don’t need to spend millions of dollars on an ad, you just need to authentically show up as a brand for your audience.
Duo on Ice
On April Fool’s day, the Duolingo app tricked thousands of people into believing that there was a multilingual musical happening for four hours with no intermission.
Duolingo partnered with SeatGeek to launch a website for people to buy tickets. However, it was just one landing page. All the links to the different locations of their musical were fake — clicking the “find tickets” button resulted in a pop up that says “Duo on Ice has been canceled,” blaming Duo the owl for a class action lawsuit which was also fake.
The website is still up to this day, but the most notable thing to take from this stunt was the team’s effort to make this seem believable. Duolingo posted a trailer for their musical, featuring all the Duolingo characters like Lily and Zari actually dancing on ice. The team wore their own mascot suits and skated on ice, teasing an upcoming performance, when in reality, it was the only show people were able to see.
They even released a song called “Spanish or Vanish” that was posted with dancing ice skaters singing in Spanish and English. This was a nod to a viral trend at that time called Spanish or Vanish. Another example of Duolingo tapping into a viral moment and adding onto the moment by making it their own.
This stunt only showed how far Duolingo was willing to go with their unhinged marketing angle. This is where the difference lies, as brands try to mimic an unhinged brand personality, Duolingo takes stunts to heights like going as far as to make a fake website to push the storyline forward.
Duolingo and Charli XCX
The most attention-grabbing guerilla marketing stunt was Duolingo’s move to get employees to go to Charli XCX’s concert. Taking advantage of a viral moment, Charli XCX’s tour, they paid thousands of dollars for pit tickets. Duolingo knew Charli’s concert would be heavily recorded and posted on social media, and so they showed up dressed to impress — as Duo the owl.
This is a prime example of guerilla marketing. While Duolingo did post about their appearance at the concert, most of the videos that went viral actually came from other people’s accounts and POVs. These videos of the Duo birds at the concert went viral and amassed millions of views on TikTok.
Duolingo is already known for their “unhinged” marketing strategies, but they took it a step further this time by choosing to spend their budget on concert tickets and tactical virality instead of taking the traditional route of ad or billboard placements. BRAT summer, started by Charli XCX, was trending in 2024, making neon green the color of the season. The Duo owl is already neon green, making a perfect parallel between him and the viral trend.
That being said, the actual Duolingo app and Charli XCX don’t have much in common other than the fact that Charli sings “talk to me in French, talk to me in Spanish, talk to me in your own made-up language.”
With millions of impressions on social media to back up the success of their stunt, it enhanced Duolingo’s brand visibility where even Charli XCX recognized the birds in concert and mentioned them. Any Charli XCX fans that didn’t know Duo before probably do now.
Duolingo Christmas Videos
In November 2024, Duolingo released a couple of fully produced music videos on Youtube that were also listed on Spotify for users to listen to. One of them was, “Bring my parents back” where the storyline involved Duo kidnapping a boy’s parents because he didn’t finish his lesson.
The boy sings for Duo to bring his parents back, promising that he’ll do his lessons. There was even a song featuring one of the Duolingo characters Lily, expressing how much she hates Christmas. Once again, we can note how far the social team goes to put together ideas for content to make it as unhinged as possible.
These videos were all made to promote their Duolingo plushie as a gift for Christmas. Their video “Owl on the Prowl” was a holiday video and advertisement all in one to promote their Duo plushie. While Elf on the Shelf was made to watch kids be good so Santa can get them presents, Owl on the Prowl was made to watch and see if you miss a Duolingo lesson.
This was the perfect way to sell a product. On Youtube, their holiday videos generated over 7 million views. Using their social-first strategy, the Duolingo team prioritized sales through socials and links over TV commercials and paid ads. They were able to show up in an unhinged way through the storytelling in their music videos. Shared across all their social channels, people showed interest in purchasing a Duo plushie.
Korean or Get Eaten
Squid Game was notably the most anticipated Netflix show towards the end of 2024. With everyone talking about the show, Duolingo tapped into another viral moment and launched a campaign with Netflix called “learn Korean or else.”
Combining Duolingo’s humor with Squid Game, this campaign was made to motivate fans to do their Korean lessons before the release of Squid Game Season 2. In the app, Duolingo added over 40 keywords in relation to the show. This way, fans can understand the show by learning the language on the Duolingo app.
After Squid Game Season 1, Duolingo saw a 40% increase in Korean learners, so why not motivate them to learn more Korean? Along with this campaign was another fully produced song called “Korean or Get Eaten,” released on Spotify and as a music video on Youtube, featuring Duo the owl in a pink jumpsuit like the Squid Game guards. On Spotify, the song received over 1.1 million streams.
Duo is Dead
As of now, Duo the owl is dead. On February 11th, it was announced in a post that Duo died. Dua Lipa reposted the statement the day after. Once the announcement went public, fans and brands went on a rampage — possibly creating the biggest funeral in internet history.
Brands like Hootsuite and Buffalo Wild Wings took part in creating reaction videos to the mascot’s death being caused by a cybertruck. This stunt is as far as Duolingo ever went, killing off their own main character. While users are having fun with this stunt, many are questioning how sustainable unhinged marketing is for Duolingo.
What can come next after killing Duo? Well, the reality is — this was a brand campaign. Duolingo announced a “gofundme” themed goal of 50 billion XP. The goal: users in every country must complete their lessons and earn 50 billion XP total to bring Duo back to life. This is a worldwide movement where the fandom of Duo can work together and play a part in saving Duo’s life.
This campaign is not only interactive, but it also further gamifies the user’s experience of learning on the Duolingo app. As of now, the USA, Germany, and China are in the top 3 for earning the most XP.
Turning this into a game where countries can compete against one another to earn the most XP 1) gets users who have the app downloaded who stopped using it to get back in track and 2) motivates users who only follow them on their socials to download the app.
This entire campaign is to generate more downloads, and ending Duo’s life was the way to do it. With this stunt, everyone who’s invested in the lore can participate in a worldwide effort to resurrect Duo.
Duolingo’s Impact
Duolingo has ultimately left long-lasting effects on the way brands view unhinged marketing. Time after time, each of their stunts are proven to be successful following their impressions on their social channels. The unhinged marketing strategy is now popular because of them.
Duolingo’s wholesome, funny, chaotic, and menacing personality teaches brands that it’s okay to step outside of their comfort zones to make content. The mascot shows that brands can still engage with their audience in a way that’s authentic and genuine instead of making ads that put their product at the forefront instead of their users.
Embracing an unhinged personality not only engages with the audience but also reaches farther in the digital space by staying relevant to younger audiences. Their social strategy helps them stand out from a sea of brands because they actively make the choice to be as authentic as possible. The outcome? Their strategy impacted other brand ads.
We see brands like Astra Tarot, Chillo, and Lune comparing their brand with Duolingo, using the brand for their own social capital. There’s a standard that Duolingo set that shifted the way marketers view their strategies. When brands try to build familiarity, they compare themselves to Duolingo and automatically, their consumers can get the feeling of what their brand is like — wholesome and unhinged.
It’s similar to seeing a logo and automatically knowing what brand it is like Adidas’ three stripes or the Nike swoosh. Duolingo is just the same to unhinged marketing. It’s hard to mimic Duolingo’s extremely successful strategy but when following their step-by-step process listed in their handbook, it all makes sense.
Key Takeaways
Brands shouldn’t necessarily copy Duolingo to a T, but there are great lessons to be learned from their social-first strategy.
- Be authentic. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone to appeal to your audience more. Sometimes, barriers need to be broken to build a loyal customer base where people recognize your brand for exactly what it is.
- Tap in. Being able to speak to your customers the right way isn’t just about solving their problems. FInding ways to be a part of cultural conversations outside of your brand space not only builds recognition but opens the doors for new customers to come to you.
- Go the extra mile. The reason why some brands can’t succeed in an unhinged marketing strategy is because it’s obvious that it’s not authentic. Going the extra mile means going as far as your brand can to push a storyline forward that is still in tune to what your brand voice is.
- Choose brand collabs wisely. Brand collabs are a great way to introduce a new audience to your brand, but sometimes, they can feel pointless. Choose brands that can help support or already align with your brand voice. Think about how you can elevate them while also speaking to your audience from your perspective.
