Calling All Emilys: A Global Promotional Campaign That Took the Internet by Storm
In today's day and age, social media has become an essential part of our daily routine. With millions of people actively using different platforms, businesses, and organizations have found it to be an effective tool for reaching out to their target audience, and people have found it to be helpful for connecting with others across the globe.
Social media campaigns have been used to promote, spread awareness about social causes, and entertain their audiences. Some campaigns have gone above and beyond traditional advertising and have achieved remarkable success, capturing the attention of millions of people worldwide by collaborating with other entities.
Duolingo’s recent collaboration with the Netflix series, “Emily in Paris” has done exactly that. We will take a closer look at how this promotional campaign has made an amazing and memorable impact.
Duolingo x “Emily in Paris” - “Calling all Emilys” Campaign
If your name happens to be Emily, you’re in luck! With the “Calling All Emilys” Duolingo campaign created with BETC, a Paris marketing agency, Duolingo gave anyone with the name Emily the opportunity to receive a free month of its premium subscription service.
Inspired by the show Emily in Paris, where an American girl named Emily finds herself in a culture shock, they created a YouTube video where six Parisian Emilys talk about how life has gotten so much harder for them since this American Emily from the show “ruined their name” by not knowing any French. This promotional video aims to allow its audience to not have the same fate as this character.
“We’ve seen the impact that cultural entertainment has on language learning as noted in our recently published 2021 Duolingo Language Report… We believe great stories have the potential to motivate learners and this moment is one we believe Emily in Paris fans will love. We loved BETC’s ability to take what was seen as a potential struggle of Emily in the show and use it to unlock something great to help all other Emilys around the world.”
- James Kuczynski, Creative Director of Brand & Marketing at Duolingo
Here is a summary of how this campaign became Duolingo’s most successful social media campaign to date:
The campaign capitalized on the popularity of the show and its protagonist, Emily, to engage with a new audience already captivated by the show, and to get more people to talk about Duolingo.
‘Calling All Emilys' aligned with Duolingo's goal of making language learning fun and easily accessible, by creating a unique lesson plan inspired by the hit show.
The campaign and the social media shares it received by both fans of the show and actors starring in it was successful in generating press coverage, which helped to increase the amount of users and brand awareness for Duolingo.
Some of the primary metrics and statistics of the campaign’s success include:
2 million organic views
7,000 new Emilys registered
Over 121 countries represented
Overall, the "Calling All Emily's" campaign was a clever and effective marketing strategy that not only boosted Duolingo's brand name recognition but also helped to promote the value of language learning to a wider audience.
