Chief Marketing Officer, Duolingo
Search every verified Manu Orssaud interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Manu Orssaud, chief marketing officer at Duolingo, discussed the company’s marketing strategy in two recent appearances. At an Axios Live event on July 17, 2025, he described how the Duolingo owl mascot gained fame through push notifications and user-generated content, leading to guerrilla marketing stunts such as appearing at a Charli XCX concert. Orssaud said the company spends about 6% of revenue on marketing and aims to “surprise and be in places that you don't expect us to be.” He also noted that the brand changes its app icon several times a year to re-engage lapsed users, citing a “dead face Duo” campaign that generated 1.7 billion views. In a September 17, 2024 interview, Orssaud said Duolingo’s first Super Bowl ad would be a five-second spot intended to create a “WTF moment.” He discussed the company’s use of AI, including a new tier called Duolingo Max that uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 to mimic a real-life tutor, and a data scraper that identifies trends from TikTok hashtags. Orssaud stated that AI is used to augment human work rather than replace it, and that the brand treats its mascot as a “Creator” with its own personality across social platforms. He cited his previous roles at Spotify and PlayStation as examples of building community-driven brands.
“Learning a language is actually very hard. So we try to get people hooked on the product by coming back every day in order to be able to learn. And the owl became famous because all those push notifications are sent by the owl, right? That's the idea.”
“When we started with TikTok, the first few content pieces that we produced were exactly what you would expect from a language learning app. It was working with influencers to translate some funny words and sentences. And it just didn't drive the variety or the interest at all. It's only when we started to not try to se...”
“We change our app icon about three or four times a year because people who haven't been on Duolingo for a while, if they see that the app icon has changed and it's weird, they will click on it and then get back into their lesson. This time we had the idea of doing a dead face Duo, creating a story about Duo dying, bein...”
“We only spend about 6% of revenue on marketing, but we do some big activations like a Super Bowl ad. We are known for being quite scrappy and authentic in the way we produce content, moving fast, but also showing breadth with more polished campaigns like the Squid Game one last year.”
Axios communications writer Eleanor Hawkins speaks to Duolingo chief marketing officer Manu Orssaud at an Axios Live event at ...
Duolingo's CMO Manu Orssaud promises the brand's inaugural Super Bowl spot will provide a “WTF moment” for viewers while ...
Sign in to search the full transcript archive, filter by topic, and access every quote from Manu Orssaud.