client

duolingo

bio

Duolingo is a language-learning website and mobile app where you can learn 30+ languages online with bite-size lessons based on science.

goal

Create an advertising campaign that can live in multiple media formats.

market

insight

What prevents people in investing in learning a new language is the inability to conceive of a goal. It’s complex and difficult to see what the results will be.

Adults think it’s too late and too hard to learn a new language now that they’re grown.

problem

  • people who have a little more time on their hands—retirees, empty nesters, single people, those who don’t have young children

  • those who are interested in international travel

  • business people—especially those who work in international business

  • college students

  • immigrants

the idea

My idea is to be able to find an image that represents exactly what the goal is in learning a new language.

So naturally, I thought of a world map.

I began to think about what your world map would look like if you only spoke one language. English, for example.

English is one of the most popular languages in the world. I filled in only the countries where the majority of the inhabitants speak English. While this is a lot of countries due to the spread of colonialism and globalization, the majority of the countries of the world are missing.

I think a lot of Americans have a self-centered view of the world. When you see how much of the world is cut off from you because you don’t know any other languages than English, it gives you insight into the affects of your ignorance.

It shows you a clear goal: to fill in more countries on this map.

my learning moments

This was the first ad campaign that I’ve come up with, and I think that I was able to engage some skills that I don’t necessarily use in branding to the same extent, but I still have these skills.

I’m a big idea person, and in my experiences working in journalism, I’d often be the person coming up with ideas for a series of stories, or helping someone else hone their ideas. I think that prepared me to work on this project. I believe if I worked on a team of creatives, we’d be able to create an original campaign with this concept for Duolingo.