Last year, the fashion brand Desigual completed a rebranding process that, among other things, involved a reformulation of its fashion proposal and a move away from its recognizable designs in search of a somewhat more sober style. The change, in the eyes of the language learning platform Duolingo, leaves English teachers helpless in terms of style.
The popular application has set out to solve the situation and has created a fictitious collection of garments, taking up the baton of the Spanish brand, but imprinting its irreverent personality on it. He has called it “Duosigual Collection” and it is a parody of the style of dress that in social conversation has been attributed to English teachers, linked to Desigual.
The idea articulates the first Duolingo campaign for the Spanish market, developed together with the creative agency La Despensa.
To do this, the influencer and communicator Samantha Hudson was involved, who published a video sharing a series of outfits to find out the opinions of her community. When showing one of them, he alluded to Desigual and its rebranding, and wondered what the English teachers were going to look like from now on; all of these ideas that articulate the campaign.
Duolingo chimed in with a message: “I’m going to have to learn to sew to make my English teacher’s clothes.”.
The result is the fictional Duosigual collection and a parody “fashion film”, starring Hudson and Duo, the now iconic mascot of the platform, popular for its viral videos on social networks. In the piece, the owl shows off three unique designs inspired by the great Desigual classics: flowery prints, mandalas and patchwork. Thus, Duolingo pays tribute to those looks, now lost, with its own version.
However, a series of clothes have been created for Duolingo’s mascots for the recording of the piece. They are the following:
As reported by La Despensa, the campaign is built on a fun crossover between fashion and learning, and in which a cultural phenomenon recognizable to several generations of users is addressed with humor. In this sense, the creative concept has been developed through active listening to the community and the identification of local insights as a source of creativity.
“Spain is a key market for Duolingo and we wanted to land here with something that connected with local humor and culture“, commented Kim de Anda, Regional Marketing Director of Duolingo for Latin America, in a statement from the agency.
“Duolingo is one of those brands that understand the language of the times we live in.”explained, for his part, Miguel Olivares, Founding Partner of La Despensa. “His humor, his ability to read social conversation and turn it into entertainment are an example of how to truly connect with people.”.
With this campaign, the agency points out that it collects and expands Duolingo’s communication style on social channels, and transfers it to the idiosyncrasies of the Spanish market.
The campaign will continue to be fed with new content on the official channels of the language platform.
