Marketing Briefing: ‘High risk, high reward’ — Understanding the state of social media guardrails
It’s funny how much social media marketing matters. You never think people would wax poetic about the supposed death of a brand mascot — and yet that’s exactly what’s happened with Duo the Duolingo Owl last week. The “unhinged content” strategy that Duolingo employed made Duo more than another brand mascot. Rather, the bird was an entryway for the brand to have real fans, something many marketers have asked their social teams to find a way to replicate, but with varying results.
The attention paid to Duo’s “death” — a few agency executives I spoke with for this piece argued that Duolingo was able to get more attention with its Duo obit than some brands got from their Super Bowl campaigns — is another indicator of how much social media can do for a brand. But Duo’s social media success didn’t just happen because the brand was active on social media. It happened because the brand was able to create content that was funny enough, entertaining enough, to break through and become part of culture. That’s the code that marketers are obsessed with trying to crack today. And it’s not easy to do.
This is a member-exclusive article from Digiday. Continue reading it on digiday.com and subscribe to continue reading content like this.
Source:: Digiday
