To amplify word-of-mouth, Duolingo identified existing sharing behavior by temporarily tracking user screenshots. They found hotspots like streak milestones and funny challenges, then invested in designers to make these moments even more shareable.

To find the right market, Gamma's seven-person team spent six months building and using two different products in parallel: a virtual office and an AI presentation tool. This macro A/B test on the company's entire direction helped them commit to the idea with the highest potential.

Duolingo's social media success began not with a big budget, but when their first social hire repurposed an old mascot suit from an HR closet for TikToks. This shows how breakthrough ideas can come from simple, resourceful observations rather than complex, top-down strategies.

Coming from product, Wiz's CMO sees marketing as liberatingly low-risk. A bad product feature creates permanent technical debt and maintenance costs. In contrast, a failed marketing campaign can be stopped instantly with no lasting negative impact, which encourages creative and unconventional experiments.

To avoid creative bottlenecks, Duolingo's legal team is firewalled from giving brand safety feedback. They focus solely on legal matters like IP and contracts. Brand risk is managed by the marketing team against a separate set of guidelines, creating clear swim lanes and faster execution.

Brands miss opportunities by testing product, packaging, and advertising in silos. Connecting these data sources creates a powerful feedback loop. For example, a consumer insight about desirable packaging can be directly incorporated into an ad campaign, but only if the data is unified.

Instead of traditional strategy, Duolingo's team applies principles from improvisational comedy. Core tenets like 'yes, and' (building on ideas) and 'commit to the bit' (going all-in on a concept) create an environment that encourages bold, reactive, and consistently creative content without internal blockers.

The viral "Spotify Wrapped" campaign began as an intern's idea before becoming a massive success that competitors like Apple and YouTube have since copied. Its history is a powerful lesson in corporate innovation, showing that company-defining marketing strategies can emerge from any level of an organization, not just from senior leadership.

The best use of pre-testing creative concepts isn't as a negative filter to eliminate poor ideas early. Instead, it should be framed as a positive process to identify the most promising concepts, which can then be developed further, taking good ideas and making them great.