Duolingo and the idea of Brand Personalities Online
written by Nicholas Fernbaugh on 4/26/2022
TikTok has been a social platform that has been on the rise and in a short time and a quick change of their market strategy Duolingo went from 100,000 followers to 4.1 million followers on top of the fact that they gained around 76.9 million likes and a 19% engagement rate which seems conceivably outlandish being six times greater than the average engagement rate of content creators on TikTok. It has grabbed the attention and the hearts of many people of Gen Z which is the primary population on TikTok which has also turned out to be a massive success for the company. This has led to the app being successful in turn with over 500 million people using the app in 2021 and being the number one app for education. So why is this happening what has Duolingo done basically overnight that has them skyrocketing overnight which in turn?
“Unhinged Content”
The answer was largely responsible because of Zaria Perez who was spending hours doing social listening (the process of computing popularity of a brand or company by extracting information from social media channels according to Wikipedia). This idea of being unhinged isn’t something that started new however as it dates to when Wendy’s started in October 2020 being sassy to people on Twitter and building this brand personality. Duolingo has adopted this idea and taken it a step further with how they presented themselves with their specific brand personality with the owl for Duolingo being goofy, very sarcastic and well “unhinged” on the company’s videos. This idea sprouted with a great deal of success after it posted itself having a crush on Dua Lipa. It brings up the idea that strong brand personalities have a strong impact on how people will view their brand and potentially buy their products. The company has followed a big trend that has helped content creators on TikTok get big with the marketing strategy of Flicker, Flash and Flare.
What Flicker, Flash, and Flare marketing strategy is
How has Duolingo Implemented Flicker, Flash and Flare?
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Duo can be spotted being in trends like the NBA trade offer trend. In Duo’s case, he gets no money or $0, while “you get Spanish lessons, push notifications” and “an owl friend”. The company and Duo will be looking for the audio that would be the most popular in which they take their own spin with learning languages while adding that brand personality.
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Duo and Duolingo have been able to keep up a strong episodic approach but with some caveats to that. The consistency ranges from post to post with some being done in the same day while other posts take a few days after the post before. Overall, there is a good level of consistency that Duolingo is keeping when it comes to these posts with Duo.
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Currently Duo and Duolingo are capitalizing on a big scale marketing campaign as we speak with them at Coachella festival. They are partnering with the people at Rotate Fest and making TikTok’s with Scrub Daddy’s TikTok account that is being interactive with another fanbase while also being at a festival that is only usually held once a year.
The Bigger Picture
How quickly Duo and Duolingo have grown on TikTok since they first went viral.
Duo has been someone who blew up not off the get go but with some solid work and being able to capitalize on trends he has become a fan favorite from TikTok. He has also shown that the formula of Flicker, Flash and Flare can work for other content creators with another big content creator being bdylanhollis who rocks with a funny online brand of sarcastic with upbeat and humorous when making his cooking videos of older recipes. The point I am making is that brand personalities are starting to become a more common idea with content creation nowadays and certain companies like Wendy’s, Duolingo and more are gaining success not just socially but through their products as well showing this idea while risky at time can be a massive success when placed in the right hands like Zaria Perez and how she has taken one idea and turn them into a worldwide loved brand personality.