Duo's Fan Wars

My Role

Motion Graphics
Art Direction
Research & Strategy

Team

Sagdiana Rakhimova
Joselyn Perez Nando
Mia Koszalka

Tools

Figma
Illustrator
After Effects

Duration

2 Months

Young Ones 2025 Brief

Reminding learners to get back to their lessons

The challenge is to get Gen Z & Millennial learners to pick up learning with Duolingo by sending them unique “reminders” they not only love but want to share with their friends.

Problem

Gen Z and millennial learners struggle to stay motivated to continue learning on Duolingo. Many focus on other interests, leaving little time for learning.

Solution

A Duolingo x Spotify collaboration that transforms language learning into a competitive, music-driven experience where fans earn points for lessons and streams.

Research

Summary of Duolingo Research Analysis

We conducted market, social media, and app research, developed three user personas representing Duolingo’s user base, and interviewed matching individuals to identify pain points. This served as the foundation for our campaign concept.

“There are many times where my favorite artist would partner with certain brands or people, which naturally would pique my own personal interest.”

“I lose motivation and interest easily, I need help to stay on track with my courses”

“I like interactive methods, that’s how I did the best in my french class.”

Pain Points

User Personas

Bryce Bowen

Achievement Pro

Needs a language learning experience with more competitive incentives.

How Might We...
Create a language learning experience for Bryce that leverages his competitive nature, keeping him motivated and engaged to practice consistently?

Contribute to existing competitive communities

Emily Carter

Balanced Learner

Wants a simple and efficient way to integrate passions into the daily routine.

How Might We...
Help Emily incorporate her daily passions into her language learning routine, making it simple and manageable alongside her busy schedule?

Leverage the users current passions

Maria Gonzalez

Social Seeker

Seeks ways to connect with new people who share similair interests.

How Might We...
Help María connect with others and build an ongoing community that aligns with her interests while learning a language?

Encourage collaboration to achieve a common goal

Look at Full Research

Research Analysis >

Strategy

Duolingo X Spotify Fandom Competition

Fandoms around the world are known for their passion and loyalty

Duo’s Fan Wars sparks competition for superfans of the biggest music artists, inspiring them to learn, share, and recruit others to join the fight. By linking Duolingo and Spotify, fans earn points by completing lessons and streaming to compete for the top spot.

Design & Development

Competing for the Duo Drop

STEP 1

Link Spotify & Duolingo

When fans open Spotify, they receive a notification inviting them to link their Duolingo accounts and join Duo’s Fan Wars, featuring their favorite artist in correlation with Duolingo’s top languages.

STEP 2

Unlock Duo’s Mix

Duo’s Mix are interactive playlists with songs from favorite artists, featuring Duolingo-enhanced lyrics to help users learn as they listen. Each artist has playlists tailored to a language, with gamified learning through Spotify’s real-time lyrics.

STEP 3

Point System

Fans earn points by completing Duolingo’s lessons and streaming their artist’s mix. The more they learn and listen, the higher their fandom climbs on the leaderboard.

STEP 4

Unignorable Reminders

Duo fuels rivalry with social media updates, driving user generated content, encouraging fans to recruit and remind each other to keep their ranking up.

STEP 5

Exclusive Duo Drop!

The winning fans will gain exclusive access to a hot new duo drop – a mini album from their featured artist!

How to Measure

This experience turns learning reminders into a fandom battle — fun, shareable, and impossible to ignore

Why it works...

Social Media

Integrates popular platforms that users are already familiar with, making it impossible to miss reminders from users.

Virality

Fans are encouraged to share online, using user-generated content to drive organic traffic back to the Duolingo app.

Competition

The fandoms who are known to have a competitive spirit will keep coming back to make sure their team wins.

↑ Back To Top ↑

Explore My Other Projects :D

Thanks For Checking Out :)

linkedin.com/sagu