We turned Roblox players into Duolingo lesson reminders.
As the world’s most popular language app, Duolingo is known for its gamified lessons, community features, and iconic mascot. With his passive-aggressive push notifications, Duo the Owl is internet famous for finding and reminding learners to do lessons, no matter where they are. And while Duo had successfully gotten millions to start learning languages, some learners were skipping lessons and spending too much time on Roblox instead. So for its 10th anniversary, Duolingo decided to remind these learners through a special virtual event on Roblox.
To celebrate a decade of Duo, Duolingo invaded Roblox by unleashing an army of user-generated games and accessories that allowed anyone to become Duo the owl. For the first time ever, we dropped a free asset pack on Roblox and invited fan developers to join the Game Jam, an event where everyone got the chance to submit their own Duolingo inspired games. Meanwhile, those who played the games were rewarded with coin multipliers, which they could redeem to purchase accessories like a bodysuit, snapback, or mask—effectively turning them into Duo the owl.
This unexpected virtual event sparked massive engagement around the world. So far more than 13 million visitors have spent 60 million minutes playing language learning games in the Duolingo Game Hub. Duolingo branded in-game merch has been collected over 100,000 times and can still be worn in any of Roblox’s 40 million games. Duo’s birthday party inspired fans to create dozens of unofficial "official" Duolingo TikTok accounts, YouTube tutorials, and funny videos featuring Duo. All this user-generated content has driven more than 15 million views across social and increased YouTube search traffic by 800%. Most importantly, there are now thousands of players dressed as our green owl who will serve as Duolingo lesson reminders throughout all Roblox games for years to come.
Check out the Duolingo Game Hub on Roblox and the TikTok we made to promote the experience as well.
Press: The Drum, Cheddar, Campaign US, Digiday
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