New Blood Entry — Duolingo PillowTalk
Award: Yellow Pencil
Duolingo / 2021
40% of young people find learning new vocabulary too hard. This places a barrier between Gen Z and downloading Duolingo, but it doesn’t have to. It turns out that if we listen to the vocabulary we’re learning in the daytime when we head to sleep, we’re more likely to remember it the following day.
Adding a little excitement to the bedroom, this campaign puts language learning at the heart of our biggest daily habit. With new audio content for when we sleep, Duolingo PillowTalk is sure to give us a night we’ll never forget...
What did the judges have to say?
"A fearless and flawlessly executed brand redesign, complete with a witty voice in copy."
Ben Hughes, VP, Creative, Squarespace, Inc
"Surprising approach, great design."
Ruxandra Drilea, Senior Creative, Publicis Italia
"It was cheeky work which makes you smile, and makes you remember it."
Aaron Lynch, Global Creative Marketing Manager, Netflix
"Pillow Talk stood out for me as a simple idea which was beautifully executed across channels. The level of art direction which took Duo, the brand's mascot, into a beautiful night time world was of such a high level - it could be launched tomorrow. The naming and copywriting were really instant, somewhat tongue in cheek but we felt it would connect well to the consumer. No doubt that this delivered on all three judgement criteria for the Yellow Pencil."
Claire Robertshaw, Executive Creative Director, Design Bridge London
"The writing made me smile every time we watched the video. A clever use of the Duo character. The art direction on every single piece of this campaign is stellar."
Allen Kwong, Creative Director, Taxi Toronto
"Duolingo Pillow Talk played into the quirkiness of the Duolingo brand and has the ability to create a new behaviour of learning. The simplicity of the idea is something that would garner new learners and benefit those already learning. The execution was beautifully crafted and just made me smile."
James Kuczynski, Creative Director Brand & Marketing, Duolingo
"Seductively good. Crafted like a dream."
Christopher McKee, Creative Director, Wunderman Thomspon