Duolingo “kills” popular mascot in a viral stunt that increases the commitment – the campanile

In a marketing stunt in February, the language learners announced duolingo that the duo -had died its cheeky, anhentious green owl mascot. In Instagram postThe company jokingly suggested: “TBH, he probably died that they do their lesson, but what do we know.” The real cause of death was later unveiled in a laudation on YouTube by Duolingo co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Luis von Ahn.

“Duo was hit by a cyberruck,” said von Ahn. “It looks like every character is dead in Duolingo. In the name of her friends, family and dua Lipa, we honor your memory. “

Ahn said that people should continue to learn Duolingo in honor of the duo.

“We are pleased to head for the occasion in view of our tormented, blurred, lind green, fictional, crispy owl friends,” said von Ahn. “So in his honor, let's open the app, make a lesson and share its most beautiful memories.”

While the app remained largely unchanged, users quickly noticed a “dead” symbol. In the meantime, Duolingo started one Global campaign On his website, users worldwide challenge to earn 50 billion XP together to revive the duo. XP or experience points are earned by completing lessons and activities on the platform.

Junior Akio Altekar-Okazaki, who has a 482-day series on Duolingo, said the event was surprisingly motivating. A strip refers to the number of successive days on which a user has completed a lesson in the Duolingo Language Learning app.

“The whole situation in which Duolingo was dead was so funny that I actually wanted to participate more,” said Altekar-Okazaki. “I did additional lessons and challenges just to make a contribution, and the community efforts made it even more motivating.”

Junior Jonathan Bakhash, who has a 1053-day series, said that the duo's death caused many people to come back into play.

“Duolingo has been somehow dead lately,” said Bakhash. “I used to work a lot of lessons every day to learn, but now I'm just trying to keep my series. When I saw the Instagram posts of Duolingo, I started the right way again. “

After the users reached the 50 billion -XP goal, Duolingo announced in February 24th Instagram Reels that the duo had been revived. In A YouTube video From Duolingo “It's time that we talk”, “ The company explained its reasons for the stunt.

“I always had two main goals. Get people to do their lessons and bring Dua Lipa to notice me. Neither worked. I had to do something drastic, ”said Duo. “So I thought why not kill a green bird with two stones.”

In fact, Duolingo killed a green bird with two stones. Dua Lipa didn't just react to it XYour marketing strategy provided results.

According to Techcrunch, the monthly active Android users from Duolingo rose by 25%, global downloads on Android rose by 38%and web search rose by 57%. The strategy of using large-scale, limited community events to increase the engagement is a tactics that can often be seen in many video games, such as the seasonal events of Fortnite or the global challenges of Pokémon Go.

In the future, Bakhash hopes that Duolingo will continue his clever and quirky marketing tactics.

“There is really no other educational platform like Duolingo,” said Bakhash. “You should maintain it with your fun encouragement because it works.”

And how duo itself put it:

“I think you could say I put the fun in the funeral.”