The Marketing Strategy Behind the Internet’s Favorite Green Menace

The tests paid off, quickly racking up millions of views and comments from fans. Since then, the brand’s TikTok following has more than tripled, driving, in Orssaud’s words, a “big intake of users.”

Speaking fans’ language

Duo has Gen Z in the palm of his wing, fronting quick-fire reactive content that capitalizes on the trends the demographic is already leaning into on social.

“He’s pure and nice, but with a diva personality,” Orssaud explained. “We’ve used [these traits] as a source of inspiration to build narratives and turn him into an influencer.”

In February, Duo’s biggest and most successful stunt came when the brand made the bold decision to kill him off by way of a reversing Cybertuck.

Over a series of days, the team dropped clues about what had happened to Duo. The company staged a funeral on TikTok watched by 66 million people; CEO Ahn read his eulogy on YouTube. Everyone from the World Health Organization to Netflix sent their condolences.

Within the week, Duolingo asked users to take a language lesson to help bring the mascot back to life. A dedicated site was updated with stats showing which countries earned the most experience points, the currency Duolingo awards for practicing a language. The U.S. topped the list, followed by Germany and Brazil.

Parvez said though the campaign had been discussed previously, decisions on what content to post ebbed and flowed based on how fans were reacting in the comments.

“Whenever we come up with a social-first campaign, we have a narrative, but we’re flexible and okay to shift and move things around or create new content on the spot,” she explained. The effort is bracketed by guardrails in the way of an ongoing Slack chat with Orssaud as well as Duolingo’s legal and PR teams.

“If something is high risk, we send it to them, and I know they’re going to respond within five minutes,” she added. “That is a priority to them.”