Duolingo's team achieves its speed by operating under the belief that 'fear is incredibly expensive.' This mindset empowers them to be their own approvers, accepting the small risk of having to delete a post in exchange for the immense creative and engagement upside that comes from moving at the speed of culture.
To maintain its creative edge, Duolingo employs an external writer's room of comedians and admired writers. Their job is to 'roast the brand' and pitch SNL-style skits, pushing the internal team to explore new lore, find blind spots, and walk the line without crossing it.
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.
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.
Duolingo avoids a one-size-fits-all video strategy. They use TikTok for capitalizing on trends due to its virality mechanics. YouTube Shorts, which favors original content, is used for building out the mascot's lore. Instagram serves as an informational hub and a home for 'millennial-core' content.
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.
The viral 'Dead Duo' campaign originated from a product team's A/B test of new app icons. When both icons performed equally, marketing was given seven days to build a campaign around the 'dead eyes' version. This demonstrates extreme agility and opportunistic collaboration between product and marketing.