We Fixed It, You're Welcome - Duolingo's Unhinged Marketing Genius

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's something else here now. Something new. From. Exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls scary as hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi Vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules.

Starting point is 00:00:19 Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. All right, here's how this works. In each episode, we pick a company we all know that has something going on right now. Then we put ourselves in charge and see if we can fix it. You'll be hearing from Melissa and Operations, Chino on people in culture, and me on marketing. My name's Aaron. As always, a quick disclaimer, we are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. These are

Starting point is 00:01:08 our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of questions everyone's thinking, have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you're welcome. All trademarks, IP, and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. Welcome back to We Fixed It, you're welcome. I should say, ola and bonjour too, given today's topic. If we had time, I'd say hello in 43 languages, because I could learn them from the company we're here to talk about. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We are your fearless fixers. You've got Melissa, Chino, and myself, and a friend of the show coming back to join us. If you listen to the TikTok episode, his voice will be familiar.

Starting point is 00:01:48 He's our finance expert and panelists in residence for today. Give a warm welcome to Sam Palazola. Sam, for those who are hearing from you here for the first time, give us a little intro. Thanks for having me, Aaron. Again, Sam Palazzo, Managing Director at Tip of the Spear, I led a couple tech companies to private equity exits about 13 years ago. So my main business today is, I'm ex-Dloid, so I help businesses scale. either through individual coaching one-on-one or consulting efforts within the leader's organization. So thanks again for having me. Look forward to participating. Good, Sam. And I have to ask, how many languages do you speak?

Starting point is 00:02:26 Good, one. No, probably three. All right, fair enough. Thanks, Sam Chino. Take us into it. And I want to know which company we're here to discuss. And I'll also say if it's who I think it is, things seem to be going pretty well for them right now. So let us know what we're here to fix. So today we'll be talking about the brand that has everybody talking, the marketing genius that is Duolingo, and kind of tap into why other brands can't seem to replicate their success. If you've been on TikTok or any social media for that matter, you've definitely come across Duo the Owl, which is Duolingo's mascot, who recently died and has come back to life. They are chaotic, unhinged in the very best way. But here's the thing.

Starting point is 00:03:17 Duolingo's social presence feels effortless, culturally relevant, and genuine, while other brands try to replicate it and often fail. And so whether you relate to their post or not, they have the entire world talking. And so I want to let us dive into like, what is their secret sauce? Why is Duolingo's approach working, others fall flat, so let's get into it. Well, do you think, believe that the reason why their marketing feels so natural compared to some other brands who have tried this, trying to be funny, is that it's rooted

Starting point is 00:03:53 in the product itself. So the app is playful, gamified, slightly obsessive. You know, you mentioned that. Think of all the streaks, reminders, leaderboards, so it's, you know, it's very competitive. Their marketing mirrors this tone, the hours. is chaotic, persistent, a little over the top, just like the apps, nudges, and notifications to keep you learning. So, you know, humor really that feels natural when it's an extension of the product experience, not just a gimmick. It's something that I think is really important,

Starting point is 00:04:32 and I think that's something that some of these larger corporations could learn from in that authenticity of what Duolingo has been able to accomplish. Yeah. And even if we stay within the same category, I think back to something like a Rosetta Stone, you know, not to say they don't have their place, but that felt like school, right? It felt like I have to. And I think Duolingo has found a really interesting way to gamify and make it something you're not only want to do every day, but you're compelled to do, right?

Starting point is 00:05:05 And we can talk about the tricks and gamification. and all those things that go into it. But they found a way to naturally integrate into a daily routine as opposed to, okay, now I've got to switch my school brand on. Yeah, I'll give you four things that I'm excited about this brand. And I don't care what size organization you are. If you're an early stage seed-founded type of a startup, if you're an existing organization that's Fortune 500 oriented,

Starting point is 00:05:32 there's four things I'm going to dig into today. One is that Duolingo, they've got a near zero customer. acquisition cost. I'm an accountant by training. Those numbers speak to me. Second, their engaged user base, it directly translates to revenue growth via subscriptions. It leads nicely into the third thing I'm going to talk about, which is success without paid marketing is possible. And it's one of those things where if you can control the narrative, growth wins. The fourth thing, and I've got some statistics that'll back this up, they track ROI via a couple of key metric categories. I'll tickle you with a feather. I'll let you know,

Starting point is 00:06:15 retention is one of them. It sings to me because one of the tech startups I led to exit was a subscription model similarly. And any subscription model is a pipeline. Members enter in on one end of the pipe. Hopefully you've got the other end crimped down so they kind of recirculate and stay. A pipeline that's open on both ends, the same aperture, that's direct flow. That's bad. Okay, so those are the four things I'm going to get into today. I want to touch on kind of the marketing and the brand. So, you know, you talk to, Sam, like the fact that they are a freemium. Their freemium subscription, meaning that it's pretty easy entry level. You download the app, you explore, and it kind of keeps you coming back, and it keeps you in the cycle. But I also think when we look at it from a brand perspective,

Starting point is 00:07:05 what I really loved about Duolingo was the fact that they were one of the first brands to really adopt TikTok. They were a primary driver there. And what was really interesting to me is unlike most brands where, you know, you have, you know, your 100 person team, you need 15 days to approve something. They're really focused on, you know, using current trends, real world engagement, culturally relevant. things that are happening and applying that into their content. And that was driven by a 23-year-old social media coordinator that started, Zara, who was the one that kind of brought this to life and, you know, being able to trust somebody that young and, you know, to really take control where right now,

Starting point is 00:07:58 they, again, of course they have a team, but it appears that there's not this lengthy approval process, which allows them to move quickly and really capture that engagement. So I'm really curious, Aaron, from your perspective, from a brand side, like, how has that been kind of a tool for them to be at the top? Yeah, well, and we're making it sound like they're not spending anything on marketing. They've invested quite a bit to get to the point where it seems effortless. They worked with Wyden Kennedy and others, and they have brands of record around the world. I believe they still have existing relationships there with the agencies of record. But more and more, they've seemed to have tapped into something internal, right? To your point, that lit a fire

Starting point is 00:08:45 from within. And what they're not having, it seems, is the higher-ups or the agencies contradicting that impulse to just take something and run with it. And that's when you, you know, from the outside, when you look at a brand that's caught fire like that, that's really exciting. Because, you know, sitting on the outside with creative services over the years, a lot of brands want to do no harm, right? So keep it safe, keep it non-confrontational, non-controversial, but when a brand embraces that, it says, no, no, we're running straight into, you know, the heat of it. That's a cool thing to see. And you just want to be part of that in some way. I think it's also that what you were saying there, Aaron and Chino, it's about the ability

Starting point is 00:09:31 to know your audience and know your platform. So they've really, like you said, embraced TikTok and the platform-specific strategies that you need to thrive on TikTok. And because they understand that fast-paced meme-driven culture, they have realized they need to give their creative team freedom. They need to have that team be adaptable and be consistent with their tone, their voice,

Starting point is 00:09:57 but also with what is the trend of today, right? because these viral TikToks happen like right away, right? So because of that and aligning that again to the marketing, to Sam's point of like when we look at it as a business, aligning that to your product and making these campaigns translate into real business results is really something to be, for them to be given a lot of credit for because we'd like to think it's like, you know, an intern sitting in the back and is like, you know, just like, oh, I'm going to, you know, type something out and post it today. But there's some thought going into that. But like I said, I believe that that consistency and that openness to allowing there to be

Starting point is 00:10:43 accountability at that creative level is so important. And also really like, it's a business. So understanding TikTok as a business and understanding how to use memes, how to use that viral technology and making sure that it drops on everyone's for you page, whether you're using duolingo or not. Yeah, Melissa, you bring up a great point. I'll reinforce it. Seven days. Seven days in total. This is the amount of time it takes between ideation. We have an idea of what it is that we want to do to better market duolingo to execution. This comes to me from, we're recording this on Friday, February 28th. On February 25th, there was an article out of Drum. The title is Duolingo.

Starting point is 00:11:28 TikTok mastermind on its unhinged social strategy in killing its mascot. And there, and Chino, you mentioned her, Zaria Parvez is the senior global social media manager at Duolingo. This is the TikTok mastermind. She says that it takes, on average, seven days to go from that ideation to execution. There's two things at play here. And those of us that are financially oriented, and even if you're, if you're a business owner, you know it.

Starting point is 00:12:00 The speed at which you can execute something without having to rely on big agencies, this will what causes things to come home to roost successfully. So you not only get quick execution, but you save on all of the outside agencies who love to run up the meter, right? The expenses just keep on trickling over and over again. But seven days, I challenge anyone to go

Starting point is 00:12:26 from ideation to execution in seven days. But Sam, I have to ask what kind of company structure or what kind of thinking has to happen internally to allow, like, it seems maybe fiscally irresponsible to come up with, we've got an idea. Let's put it out there for a company of this size of Duolingo. Now, if you're, you know, start up in your first year, you throw everything at the wall and see what happens. But they have, they have subscribers. They have a reputation to uphold. They, they could trip or themselves by doing that type of approach. So what has to happen? structurally and institutionally to say, will risk the financial repercussion because it's working. Well, and this is the Duolingo song that you might hear, not Duolipa, dualingo. From the perspective of success creates future success. So once you put into place somebody like Zaria and she begins having some successes, that fosters additional trust, additional forgiveness, or just let's face it, the capability

Starting point is 00:13:28 to provide a seven-day window to attempt to go out and execute. Success is the cure of all diseases. It's just like making money within business, right? So I would say that all of those good things that happen from a, what are our leadership mentality, what do we have to have in place organizationally structured in order to kind of keep this thing moving, the flywheel well greased?

Starting point is 00:13:55 You need to have somebody creating success. and Zaria has mastered that. I agree. And I would say, too, just talking about the talent that needs to happen and what needs to happen from a recruitment perspective, right? So Zaria joined when she was 23, kind of as a coordinator, and has now become, like, the global brand kind of co-head with somebody else. And, you know, that is quite rare, right?

Starting point is 00:14:21 You often have in agencies or in-house where you have the coordinator that's kind of like putting the idea together and has to go to the creative director. And like you mentioned, Sam, kind of running up that meter and Aaron, I'm sure, from like a marketing perspective, it's, you know, there's all of the checks and balances in place, in part because Duolingo has a huge brand. And so there's even legalities around things that they need to check and go through. But I would say from a leadership perspective, it's being able to recognize talent to give somebody that exposure to, test, right? Not every brand is able to kind of flex and kind of ebb and flow in a creative capacity, right? There are some very strict guidelines that some brands aren't willing to go,

Starting point is 00:15:10 where Duolingo was one of the first and actually one of the few that I've said, let's go. Let's tap into the culturally relevant things. Let's touch into what's happening now. where so many brands shy away from that. And if you look at this kind of seven-day sprint that they have, it allows them to be current. You know, it's really kind of, you look on the opposite side, though, and where sometimes this can go wrong,

Starting point is 00:15:38 is if you're trying to push for things to happen, I kind of look at, and I remember the Burger King ad where it said, you know, women belong in the kitchen. It was a tweet that went out, which had major blowback. It was during Roman. history month and, you know, was one of those things that, you know, you did need the checks and

Starting point is 00:15:59 balances and there was a big blowback from that. And so brands are also scared because we do have a cancel culture. And so it's like, where do they tow the line and as leadership, you know, what are the reins you can give somebody to have that creative freedom while still raining it in from like a brand guideline perspective? So, Aaron, I'd be curious to get kind of you're thinking from a marketer's perspective, like, how do you up and flow? Where is, what's the limit here? Yeah, and I was thinking of other brands that they've positioned this duo mascot as not just representation of the company, but he's an aggressive presence on TikTok and other places, right? So if you don't do your lessons, he's coming after you. And I was from a brand positioning standpoint,

Starting point is 00:16:46 that's interesting. I was trying to think of other brands that have done that historically. And I can think of, you know, the Kool-Aid man will burst into your room and knock down your wall. The noid from Domino's Pizza back in the day was kind of a chaos agent. But to come up with this presence, you know, that is constantly after you, that's a really interesting tone to strike on social to engage new listeners and challenge them. And they do. They've done very well at being zeitgeisty and in the moment. So they, when they did a partnership with Squid Game,

Starting point is 00:17:19 When season two came out, they got people, you know, learning Korean. When TikTok, the exodus from TikTok and onboarding onto Red Note, there was a spike in Chinese. And so they said, okay, now you're learning Chinese. So it's really this fun interplay with their audience. And those, they even don't engage at the moment, but they're sitting there watching. You have to pay attention to what they're doing. And I think that that's what they've been. It's so admirable, you know, what they're doing to just be culturally relevant one time after the next.

Starting point is 00:17:56 And I think that's where other brands stumble. And I'll get into it a little bit. But they'll do something. Say, look over here. And then it's back to business as usual. Yeah, Chino, you asked the question, is it rare? Or isn't it rare? I would say it's rare from a couple of different perspectives.

Starting point is 00:18:12 But perhaps the greater leadership challenge is to, to open yourself up to find your Zaria that works for you today, right? To find that Zaria that works for you today. Because as a leader, you need to be open to suggestions, open to new ideas. You probably have that individual, I would argue, within your team today that's in marketing. But whether or not you choose to pay attention to them or to allow them to leverage tools like AI, where they can dramatically compress the cycle at which you can go from that, again, back to that seven-day ideation through execution, to stay current, to stay relevant.

Starting point is 00:18:54 That's the challenge. So is it rare? I think it's not rare probably from a marketer's perspective. It might be rarer from the leadership challenge moment. Yeah. And I think a part of that, to be honest, it's ego, right? As much as there's so many agencies and places. where it's like there's no ego it's like you want to have your name you are the creative director

Starting point is 00:19:17 if you worked for X amount of years and you're the one that's kind of making these calls and so it's really hard to turn to the intern who maybe is here for three months it has a brilliant idea and it kind of look and think of the Spotify wrapped intern who came up with the idea of the spotified rap which is essentially like everybody kind of waits at the end of the year for the rap to come and again if nobody paid attention to what this person was sharing, would we have this masterpiece that people look forward to? I don't know. And I think it really is a challenge for leaders to kind of look and think outside of the box. Of course, as leaders, you have great ideas, you have the experience, but it's not to say that, you know,

Starting point is 00:20:02 you're the Gen Z on Twitter or on, you know, TikTok that you understand this current trend or this audio where you need to have that culturally relevant cycle being fed to you and ideas that might stretch. And again, not every client is going to be hungry for that. Some clients need to stay in their box. But I do think it's important to test the boundaries as Aria had to see if you can make magic happen. And we're seeing that as well with Kraft and the mustard campaign that came out. If anyone was paying attention to the Kendrick and Drake, yes, I'm from Toronto. Kendrick absolutely won that beef. But I thought that was brilliant for Kraft Heinz to, you know, partner with mustard the producer and come up with this bedazzled, brilliant mustard limited

Starting point is 00:20:58 addition. And again, culturally relevant on the nose. It was perfect. Yeah. I think from company's perspective to when you think about all of these things, you know that they have a huge backing, corporate backing. And so they're aware that they need to make sure that brand alignment is there. So even in all of these types of situations with the with the Heinzmestered, with, you know, all of the others that have, you know, TSA, there's other accounts that are really doing well on social media. You know, ensuring that the humor tone aligns a again with the brand identity because if it doesn't, it will feel forced, it will feel, and it could damage your reputation, right?

Starting point is 00:21:43 We've seen that happen. I mean, you've mentioned a few that haven't hit the mark. But I'm assuming that they also have crisis management just in case something is offensive, right? Have a plan in place for when things can go wrong because they can go wrong very quickly. And we talked about Starbucks. We talked about cancel culture. That is a big thing.

Starting point is 00:22:02 So if a campaign is misinterpreted or offends, what is the response? And how do you do that quickly? So I think that along, you know, is part of what a business is there for. And then also really like long-term impact. So considering how playful and marketing fits into your overall brand, is that for the long hall and does that somehow overshadow what your product or your mission is, right? And so here, Doolingo is, it isn't doing that. So it's great. But, you know, there are other brands where it could do more harm than good. So I do feel like in the background, Doolingo has all of this going on to,

Starting point is 00:22:49 to allow for that freedom of creativity, right? Well, Sam, you mentioned Doolingo is a subscriber model. it's effectively a one product company. They sell merch and other things. Maybe they sell data behind the scenes, but it's a one product company. But when you talk about these companies that are part of a brand family, or it's a little harder to discern what the long-term impact is, and you look at other companies that do these stunt marketing approaches like goldfish crackers, rebranding themselves as chili and seabass crackers for one day,

Starting point is 00:23:20 or a very short period because they wanted to, adults to know it was good for snacking for adults and not just kids and we're growing up now. Now they're a billion-dollar brand, so is it going to make a major impact? Now they can go back to business as usual. But then you have something like planters that did the Mr. Peanut, they killed off their mascot and brought it back, right? Same. Let's find the closest approximation to now in a very well-publicized commercial.

Starting point is 00:23:45 Did it make a long-term impact? I mean, their sales aren't, it's, again, hard to tell. They're part of a brand family. Their sales aren't great compared to where they were at the time, around the time that commercial aired. But did they make a long-term commitment to being playful and being inherent in the brand personality? I don't think so. They don't have the same level of public awareness, but I don't think they made this full-fledged commitment that now we're a fun brand and you're going to play, you know, it's playful and you're going to come back to us for our take on everything that's

Starting point is 00:24:14 happening the way that Duolingo has. And I think that's what makes the differentiation. Yeah, I would agree there too. And what's interesting is about kind of this consistent brand voice that we keep talking about with Duolingo and how that kind of translate to their product. And I'm very curious to see at the end of this year because, you know, you have Forbes, you have New York Times, you have business insider, you have news outlets talking about a death of a mascot of a brand. That is very rare, especially in the climate that is there today right now. And it's almost like a reprie from kind of what's going on in the world. It's being that little nugget where you're like trying to keep up with what's going on with duo. And I just think that will translate,

Starting point is 00:25:05 hopefully for them, to more users. I did pick up my duolinga again. You know, I had a bit of a hiatus on my streak, but, you know, I was like, oh, let me pick this up again. This is really interesting and just to see the changes that they've made in house as well. So I'm curious to see what's going to happen as a result in terms of their user base. And Sam, I'm curious to see or get your take on, you know, the brand and great campaigns and then kind of how that translates into the business and what this can mean for them. Yeah, I think it's a cop-out for most leaders to look at the duolingo success story and to sit there and say, well, they're not like us. I think that it's one of those situations where, you know, if you look at the success that they've had, could they potentially

Starting point is 00:25:56 achieve the same level of success without paid marketing? These are the stats. 80% of their users today are acquired organically, which means that duolingo could function with zero paid marketing. It probably wouldn't be optimal, right? They probably need to throw in some strategic paid marketing into the works. I'll let Aaron comment on that. That's more his face. But 80% is a significant figure. When you couple that with some of the things that, you know, we've talked about brand and we've talked a little bit about the speed at which they execute their advertising.

Starting point is 00:26:35 But the thing that Duolingo does as an organization is they back it up by creating a platform that allows for those speed at execution moments to take place as well. So their virality, it's just, it's an overarching business model for their enterprise as well. So I think you mentioned this, Sam, as well. It's about driving customer retention, right? And also the monetization, because while the app is premium, the engaging marketing and the engaging relationship that they are creating with their customers, probably drives more conversions to a paid subscription model.

Starting point is 00:27:17 And to your point, like, this is where it comes down to nuts and bolts, right? So I really truly agree. I agree with you 100% that, like, this is genius, increasing the brand awareness, boosting user engagement. But like, when it comes down to the business that they're trying, that they're in, and there are competitors, Rosetta Stone, for example, Aaron brought that up earlier. Driving customer retention and monetization of what they've been able to do is really fascinating. and is something for us to definitely, you know, for others to look at to see how they've been able to do that.

Starting point is 00:27:54 Yeah. And it's also rare too. Like what brand is bullying you to use their product, right? That is what Duo has been doing. And so, yeah, you're gamified into, okay, keep going, keep going, keep going. And I think it translates so well. But Aaron, I'd love to hear your take on that too. Yeah. Well, what you want to do as a brand is find your own lane. But it's so inherent to your DNA that no one else. can do it. So if Rosetta Stone or Babel started being funny and commenting on social, they've got a lot of catching up to do. Right. Now they can compete in other areas. They can go the price discount strategy. They can do, like I said, more of the school academic approach where Dealing was very gamified. When I was doing my streak, sometimes I would go on just to play the game and preserve my score and my streak, and I didn't learn a whole lot for a while. But they get you into it.

Starting point is 00:28:47 ways. But yeah, across the board, when you're in a competitive space, especially in a subscriber model, you really want to find your approach and your lane that no competitor, if they tried to do it, you know, if they made a fun comment about what's happening in the news or some awards show from another brand, it's just going to seem like an imitator and people are going to see it for what it is. Yeah, let's talk. I was going to say, let's take a look at this retention and monetization moment, Chino, because it's not a minor moment. When you look at freemium models, they only work when users stay engaged. What Duolingo does is they convert long-term free users into paying subscribers at a significantly higher rate than most other freemium apps because of that, as Aaron mentioned, that addictiveness that occurs from gamification. So not a minor moment to overlook. Yep. And I also like, Aaron, what you said is that there's not an ability, a copying it is not what you can, what's going to be great for every company, right?

Starting point is 00:29:54 So you really can't copy this model in the sense of like, oh, I'm going to try to have a bullying mascot or whatever, you know, right, China. So you really have to make it your own. And I think that's the essence of authenticity that we're talking about with this. One of the things that I thought was really interesting is that when you go on a dualingo's TikTok, right, and you look at, when they announced the death of the out. Like how many big brands commented? Because they wanted like to get in on it because they saw that it just went super viral. Right.

Starting point is 00:30:28 And so all these huge like Campbell's Soup. Like all the I was like, why do they even care? Right. And then they're trying to make it kind of cutesy and funny. And some of them landed. Some of them didn't. And I think that's what you're seeing is that when a brand can embrace a unique. tone and voice that is different from anything else that's when they're successful.

Starting point is 00:30:52 So like I mentioned Wendy's before their Twitter and, you know, their TikTok presence is very interesting. That's another great example. They're pretty savage and their banter against like McDonald's and all their competitors. And they just, they don't apologize, right? They're just like, oh, yeah, that's a value meal McDonald's, right? You know, like, you know, all the things. And it's great in it.

Starting point is 00:31:17 And then people are always wondering, like, what's happening to Wendy, right? And she's commenting on all these different, on all these different sites that don't even have to do with fast food. The other one that's kind of interesting right now. I don't know if you guys have seen is the TSA. So the travel, the travel Twitter account. Because they also, they've kind of, and I've read interviews with their social media manager as well. And they've said the same thing that they've chosen to go the route of travel tips and dad jokes and really bad puns. Right.

Starting point is 00:31:54 And so they'll and it's it's informative because they're saying like, you know, people will then like post to them and say, is this a liquid or is this not? Right. Like can I take my mom's chili on the plane? Right. And then they'll post something. And then, you know, like people are just. just like laughing about it and they're like, well, what about the onions and cheese and da-da-da-da-da, you know, and all these kinds of things.

Starting point is 00:32:19 And so, again, I think that if they can find an authentic and really unique branded voice, that's what's really important as well. And I don't think you're going to be able to duplicate because what ends up happening is it doesn't align with either your product, your services, what your company is about, your mission. and it falls very short, and we've seen that with other companies that have not been able to be as successful, like Orion Air, like, you know, meta. There have been some things that have fallen really short and fallen flat. It's an interesting point. Aaron, I'm interested in your take on this. I know from a financial reason why it is that some of those Big Fortune 500 orgs were commenting on the death of the Duolingo owl. I mean, listen to some of these Q3, 2024 stats. 40% revenue increase to just under 200 million annual.

Starting point is 00:33:19 54% growth in daily active users, the DAUs. They're up to 37.2 at the end of Q3 last year. And they achieved a 47% jump in paid subscribers to 8.6 million. If you can, as a Fortune 500, get some type of transfer. from Duolingo's customer base to your own. Isn't that kind of what brand is all about and trying to get some of those folks over the curb? Those are the financial reasons, but what's your take? Yeah, that's everything you'd want as a brand, is to come out and say, this is how we play, get to know us.

Starting point is 00:33:58 And then when you see the response, not just from user-generated content, but like Sam, like you said, major worldwide brands chiming in on this thing where a mascot died, it's amazing, right? when does that happen? And again, I applaud them for a lot of brands can step forward around the holidays or around key, key events that are happening. They created a milestone out of nowhere in February and got the world to pay attention. And their stocks trading, I believe, in an all-time high right now. But Sam, I'd ask, like, where do you go from there? How do you sustain and how do you grow when you've hit, I don't know if they're at peak, peak zeit guys, peak saturation? Or what do you do from here from a financial perspective. As my friend Chris Rock would say, sometimes the sky's the

Starting point is 00:34:42 limit. Other times the limits the sky. I'll share with you a couple of metrics that I would look to deploy or to begin measuring just to determine how far can we go. The first one, K-factor, right? This measures how many new users each existing user brings. So there's potential for exponential growth. The second, retention versus churn. In other words, how many folks are we bringing in and keeping versus those and back to my pipeline model that are entering in one end and exiting the other? The third, it's the LTV, the lifetime value, right? The fourth, revenue per user. Revenue per user. Most organizations want to look at revenue per internal customer or stakeholder, so your revenue per employee, but revenue per user, if you can look at that, that's another key metric.

Starting point is 00:35:37 The fifth and final one, well, these are the engagement metrics. And this is TikTok views, likes, shares. All of these translate to real user acquisition trends. I would look at those five measurements and attempt to manage against. Right, we are getting our wrap-up signal. I'm going to take it to the room and start asking if we look at. at sustainability of this voice and character. Obviously you killed duo, brought them back. You can't do that every month. You could try, but people probably aren't going to follow you there.

Starting point is 00:36:14 You've got to come up with the next thing. Does this work sustainably long term? Is there a path forward for growth? Are we going to see increasing subscriber growth, let's say, in over the next five years? Or are we at the peak right now? And what do other companies have to do to copy it? Does this kind of stunt marketing work. I'm going to ask you, China. I would say for other companies, where you can learn from Duolingo success is finding that niche, finding that brand voice that is yours and running with that and making sure that that aligns to your product.

Starting point is 00:36:49 Again, why Duolingo and Duo has been so successful? Because they're bullying us in their app and they're bullying us on TikTok. And that kind of consistency is throughout. again, allowing your creative teams, your juniors, to step up and have that exposure and to test. This didn't happen overnight. You need to test different things and campaigns as a bigger brand to see kind of what sticks. And once you find that, run with it. But I do think if brands can incorporate all of that, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:37:29 They can find similar success, maybe not as big as duo. but, you know, again, that transference that you were talking about Sam can hopefully happen for them as well. What do you think, Melissa? That they have created such an amazing experience. And I think that they can continue that long term, as long as they keep in mind and aligning their marketing with the product experience and what the services that they offer, continuing to give their team creative freedom like Chino mentioned and embracing those platform strategies like TikTok or wherever the next big platform might be. And being adaptable, I think that things change.

Starting point is 00:38:11 And so next year it may be something else. And I feel like because they do have the agility and they've been able to do it, like Sam mentioned, in a seven-day turnaround, this is going to be really kind of their, what's going to shoot them to the top because, and keep them at the same. the top is because they're going to be a ability to really be adaptable to really be at the front of the race and continue to grow. So I'm really excited to see how this continues to play out for them. What do you think, Sam? What's the path forward for Duolingo and what can other companies replicate from their success? A wise man once told me the demands of the customer,

Starting point is 00:38:55 if we didn't have to put up with them, this would be a great business. Here's how I look at Duolingo. And this is an important message for any leader, again, regardless of your organizational size. Any time you can blend financial insights, viral strategy, and monetization mechanics, and put those all three into play, you'll achieve success more than you fail, regardless of the demands of that customer segment I spoke of. So I'm Pollyannish. I'm optimistic about Duolingo.

Starting point is 00:39:30 their ability to execute moving forward. Very interesting. Yeah, and I'd say they have a world-class brand. As long as they don't trip over themselves, they do. I think they've got a bright future. I would encourage to, with, you know, thinking about our conversation, to look beyond the existing subscriber model and say, what do we, how do we do we do with our brand?

Starting point is 00:39:50 Where do we take it from here? And I don't know if that's going into, we talked about Netflix a while back. That's going into our friend Netflix and doing some original content as a pathway to, see a user adoption. I don't know if we'll see a dueling a movie someday, but it could be, but once you have a brand of that power, you start thinking, we've got one model, what do we do we do with it? How do we take it? Do we take it into the classroom? There's a lot of ways to go with it. So I'm excited. I'm interested to see where we go from here. Well, there's another fix on the books. I'll check that in our favor. I'd like to again, thank Sam Palazzo for sitting

Starting point is 00:40:24 in with us when sharing his financial wizardry. Sam, remind our listeners how they can find you. Yeah, real simple. Just find me at Sam Palazolo. Zolo. You spell it just like you say it. Sampelozalo.com. Very good. And thanks again for tuning in. Keep up your streaks. Throw us your listener requests at we fixedetpod.com. And we'll see you next time. This podcast is produced by straightforward media group, all rights reserved. If you'd like to learn more about how a podcast can help your company establish authority and generate leads, please email us at Eric at straightforwardmg.com or go to straightforwardmg.com for more information.

We Fixed It, You're Welcome - Duolingo's Unhinged Marketing Genius

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.