Episode 167 - Duolingo on Ice Reviewed by BNP Paribas
American audiences who love Disney on Ice will have been delighted to see a favourite show format return with the Duolingo on Ice ads… only it was an April Fool’s joke!
The latest Duolingo ad stays true to the brand spirit, but also shows real depth with its attention to detail, including SeatGeek and Spotify integrations. It’s all about virality and keeping the brand top of mind, but does it give any added value or will it bring in conversions?
Our guests Melissa Nyarko (Media and Career Consultant), Lucie Say (Head of Social Media and Reputation at BNP Paribas), and Jason Huertas (Former Lead Product Manager - Advertising and Marketing Technology (North America) at The Kraft Heinz Company) discuss its merits and let us know if they would have signed off on it or not.
Episode 167 - Duolingo on Ice Reviewed by BNP Paribas
Transcript
This is automatically generated, so it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 00:00
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a show where advertisers watch other advertisers’ ads. Before we get to this week's creative, let's meet this week's guests.
Melissa Nyarko 00:38
Hi, there, everyone. My name is Melissa Nyarko. Until recently, I was the Senior Brand Manager at Live Nation. I'm currently a Media and Career Consultant.
Lucie Say 00:49
Hi, I’m Lucie Say, and I'm the current Head of Social Media and Ereputation for BNP Paribas Retail Banking Division in Paris.
Jason Huertas 00:56
And hi, there. I'm Jason Huertas. Until recently, I was helping Kraft Heinz Marketing Digital Transformation Initiative, helping build MarTech and AdTech internally.
Tom Ollerton 01:05
Fantastic. What a panel! Right... Let's see this week's quite weird creative. On a scale of 1 to 5, how many votes would you give it out of five? So one, two, three... A four, a four, and a four. Right... Melissa, what is going on?
Melissa Nyarko 03:00
I honestly thought this was hilarious, but essentially, this was an April Fool's ad campaign, of course, for Duolingo, which is a language learning app, if you will. It essentially was framed in the sense of, you know, the Disney on Ice commercials that we all remember from late 90s, early 2000s, and essentially played on that factor with the added brand integration with SeatGeek and also with Spotify.
Jason Huertas 03:30
Obviously, it was hilarious as well. I didn't know it was an April Fool's joke... Actually in the YouTube comments, someone said it and I was like, “Oh, that makes sense.” And then I actually went to the SeatGeek page, and if you click around to actually buy a ticket, it says like a hilarious copy. Like, the show has been canceled, so and so did something ridiculous. And it was just perfect... If you click on the Find Tickets button.
Lucie Say 03:51
Yeah, I think for a while, for the people who actually clicked on the Find Tickets button, there was actually a coupon for one month free of Duolingo.
Jason Huertas 03:58
That's brilliant.
Lucie Say 03:59
That's, that's pretty clever. Yeah. I think it was in the first weeks of the campaign.
Tom Ollerton 04:02
Why are they doing this? What's the brand play here?
Lucie Say 04:04
Duolingo is pretty, you know, a brand that's pretty well known for kind of leaning in trends and humour and listening to, you know, what consumer expects to see or consume on social channels. And they've always tried to kind of push the envelope when it comes to other top concepts. So it's just like one other attempt basically at doing something that is you know, funny and to engage, you know their consumers, their target consumers. For April Fool's, you know it's always, you know a risky and you know challenging moment for brands to do something usually because there's always this thin line where it's hard to assess between you know, not going far enough and it's just becomes like dull and predictable and just going too far and get a backlash, basically. But for a brand like Duolingo who's been used to, you know, doing those kind of stunts. I think they’ve perfected kind of the good formula to do it with, you know, the mascot and, you know, the jokes and the private jokes that they've created over time and that they've reused in the, in the advertising. So, yeah, I think it's you know, it's pretty well done from, from them, you know.
Melissa Nyarko 05:08
In today's digital playing field, it's all about kind of doing the most outrageous, definitely wanting to go viral, creating your own moments rather than latching on to a moment. I really think it's for a mix of users who are already engaged because those folks, of course, would know who the mascots are, for example. And then, of course, just to catch a new audience, maybe... I saw this and thought it was funny and I show, you know, a friend of mine or send it to a coworker, and then that word of mouth kind of spread is exactly the aim here.
Jason Huertas 05:45
It's really all about awareness and word of mouth and virality and keeping the brand top of mind. And from what I do know about Duolingo, although it might be weird, I believe they are the largest player and have the largest market share when it comes to language apps. So maybe for them that was exactly the brief. Get people talking about us. Keep us top of mind when it comes to awareness, and April Fool's was a good opportunity for them.
Tom Ollerton 06:11
How would you be building on this? Where do you see room for improvement?
Melissa Nyarko 06:13
First, I'll highlight what they did really well, which is, you know, kind of the diversity throughout the ad felt very organic and authentic. The use of humour was really fitting. And then, you know, carrying it through to the SeatGeek pop up website and the Spotify playlist, I think was really brilliant. Where I feel like there could have been room for improvement, perhaps in drawing something to new kind of acquisition and kind of making it like widening the audience a little bit to kind of draw new users in. I feel like this is very much based for a customer base that is already familiar with them, knows the mascot, knows the owl. Countries like France, where this app is not as visible. I think there could have been something kind of drawing them to want to now sign up and learn on this app, which I don't think that lands. I think that if you're already familiar with the brand and kind of know that they're a little bit, you know, more goofy and out there, this would make sense in your world. But I think if you're outside of that context, it might not land as well.
Unknown Speaker 07:23
The use of humour was right on, spot on. I'll be honest... My first thought was, “Hey, this is kind of weird.” It kind of picked up and I chuckled a couple of times, and at the end I saw the SeatGeek integration. I was like, “Oh, that's super interesting. Let me go check out what this means.” And then it was actually the SeatGeek page that made me the most, you know, I really like this ad, what they did, like, the content, the copy was really thoughtful. So in some way to kind of incorporate the SeatGeek more into the ad itself because I feel like the closer was actually... For me, when I went to the other page, the SeatGeek page, and that, you know, in the traditional marketing funnel, that's a conversion page and I would maybe wanted to see something in the ad itself.
Lucie Say 08:03
When you just see this campaign as a one shot, you know, sometimes you feel like you maybe outside of the jokes, but at the same time, you know, if we see the globality of Duolingo’s marketing and social media strategy, that this kind of repetition in between like stunts in a very short span of time between you’re exposed to this campaign and then maybe you open TikTok or other social media platform, you see the contents again. So it's about, you know, the repetition and the expositions to all the times to it, all the times of the year, so...
Melissa Nyarko 08:35
As a brand manager, I think this is, this is spot on. It's very authentic to them. I don't think anyone who knows the brand will look at this and be like, “This is off the mark.” Like... I don't think they would be surprised kind of by the stunty, over-the-top nature of it, which I love. Like if they found success with that, like continue to lean into that.
Tom Ollerton 08:58
Would you sign off this campagin, in its entirety, in its current format? One, two, three... Brilliant. Guys, thank you so much. And we will see you all next week.
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