February 28, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode of On The Go with Jacob and James, Jacob takes the reins solo as he dives into the wild world of viral marketing campaigns, focusing on the recent antics of Duolingo. With James unavailable this week, Jacob reflects on the quirky and sometimes bizarre strategies companies use to engage audiences, particularly the humorous and darkly comedic death of Duolingo's mascot, Duo. He discusses the clever ways Duolingo has embraced meme culture, including the fallout from a viral Instagram post involving Drake and the ensuing mock funeral for the beloved owl. Jacob also shares insights into the effectiveness of such campaigns and whether they truly resonate with users. Plus, he wraps up with a manga minute, reviewing "The Wolf Never Sleeps," a story of adventure and magic that leaves him pondering its potential. Join Jacob for a unique and entertaining episode filled with laughter, commentary, and a sprinkle of introspection!
Duolingo Marketing Madness: (00:00)Manga Minute: The Wolf Never Sleeps: (15:31)
Let us know what you think: Onthegopod2023@gmail.com
Follow us on Instagram:@onthegowithjacobandjamesJacob- @jacobdantone.audioJames- @jame.s9794Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNHz1UqCTmJLXctQRH0ZgrQSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Zo47PmqrG0xawi5FQEvYb?si=bccbf185a1d04a51
On The Go Shows:
Joel And The Monkey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfWuJJ4aro0&list=PLM8jxYovLY_u7hEqCaktfLvd2xcW1bFJz
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Duolingo Marketing Madness: (00:00)Manga Minute: The Wolf Never Sleeps: (15:31)
Let us know what you think: Onthegopod2023@gmail.com
Follow us on Instagram:@onthegowithjacobandjamesJacob- @jacobdantone.audioJames- @jame.s9794Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNHz1UqCTmJLXctQRH0ZgrQSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Zo47PmqrG0xawi5FQEvYb?si=bccbf185a1d04a51
On The Go Shows:
Joel And The Monkey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfWuJJ4aro0&list=PLM8jxYovLY_u7hEqCaktfLvd2xcW1bFJz
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Wake it up.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I feel so damn good.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
I got a phoner.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Released a new episode today.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Listen to it, my boner owner.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
No better than listen to the Own the Goat Show
with my phone boner.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Welcome back, everybody to the On the Go Show. Now
you might notice pretty soon that it is just me,
Jacob Dantone, your host today or the host for now.
You see, James and I have had conflicting schedules this week.
And don't worry, he didn't get kidnapped by pirates or
trapped in a snowstorm that I'm aware of. We're just
(00:59):
not a to record on the same days together this week.
Now next week it should be back to your regularly
scheduled programming.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
But for now, it's just me.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I would like to bring up something very interesting that's
been going on in the world of commercials.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I know James and I don't really talk about commercials
too much, and I think a lot of people have
negative feelings on advertisements or commercials these days. You know,
YouTube is doing a lot of like wacky stuff with
you with their ads or I think that now they're
embedding the ads into.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
The video as it plays.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I know a lot of people pay extra for streaming
services to like now look at ads and stuff, but
I don't, or some of the streaming services we have,
we don't pay, so we see ads. We're also in
the social media digital age to where everything you see
on the Internet is almost an ad. Every influencer is
an advertisement in some way. You might not realize it.
(01:57):
But I mean a lot of the times they're advertising themselves,
which is fine self advertisement, that's obviously the point.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
That's how you get your brand, that's how you get
notice and all that great stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But sometimes, like you know, they'll they'll do they'll do
brand deals with certain companies and they'll we'll talk about
different items or like you you. The thing with influences
is it's gotten. So how do I think of the word.
It's gotten so convincing that even if you're just scrolling through,
you might not realize it's an ad right away until
(02:27):
they start bringing up a brand. What I want to
talk about today is the latest viral marketing campaign that
du Lingo has been doing. And if you don't know
due Lingo, due Lingo is a language learning app that's
kind of like gamified learning language right It's it gives
you XP there's like daily lessons, there's goals, there's it
(02:49):
makes it more fun to learn different languages. If I've
tried it before, I know a couple of people in
my life are using it. Du Lingo started around twenty eleven,
and over the last few years it's really picked up
a lot. Everybody's not everybody, but a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Have been using it.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
And you know, you might recognize a little cute green
owl mascot. There's been a lot of memes and there's
a lot of jokes that like, hey, if you don't
do your lesson, the owl is gonna come get you. Right,
It's always been a joke because the owl seems sort
of menacing on the app. I don't know he'll he'll
notify you a lot if you need to do a lesson,
And so people started to joke that like, oh, if
(03:26):
if you don't do your lesson du the dual lingo,
I was gonna come kidnap you. And I guess somebody
at the company had noticed this and they started adding
it to their their ads and their notifications, like sometimes
due will pop up and be like, hey, do your
lesson or else, even so much so to where the
mascot on the app will like become angry if you're
(03:49):
not doing a lesson, or I don't know, he'll pretend
to die or he'll pretend to get sick, and you know,
just try to guilt guilt trip you and gaslight you
into coming and doing your lesson.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
And it's all in good fun. Everybody's really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
But something the weird that happened recently, as recently as
just after the the Kendrick Glamar Super Bowl halftime performance.
And I bring up the Kendrick Lamar because it does
tie in to what I'm about to say next. Right
after the Super Bowl halftime performance, Duo du Lingo put
out a little story on their Instagram and social media
pages that says, Drake after attending his own funeral on
(04:24):
National TV. And it's like the little dual Lingo al
He's he's facing away from the camera and his butt
just like inflates and another baby dual Lingo owl comes
out of it, which is very weird and a dick
at Drake because everyone's dicking at Drake after Kendrick Gilmar's performance, well,
I mean before that, but especially after this last like
Super Bowl performance.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
It was really weird, un hinge.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And people were like, oh okay, dull so as a statement,
I suppose. And then like a day or two after that,
it was reported that Dual Lingo had died. He was
hit by a cyber truck and they think a famous
Canadian rapper was involved. Like they brought Drake into this
for some reason. And I don't know if Drake's people
like contacted them right away, because that kind of dropped
(05:10):
real fast.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
That dropped real soon.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Nevertheless, they reported that Dual Lingo had died, it got
a little weird.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
It got a little weird.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Because like they were talking about fake funerals, and eventually
all the other characters got killed off. And there's a
message from the CEO which I'm gonna play for you
right now.
Speaker 5 (05:30):
Hey all, it's Luis fun On, co founder CEO of
Dual Lingo, otherwise known as Duo's daddy. I have a
prepared statement that I will read in life of recent events.
As I'm sure you've seen by now, Duo was hit
by a cyber truck. And it looks like in fact,
every character at Due Lingo is dead on behalf of
(05:51):
their friends, family and dua lipa, we honor their memory.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I guess.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
In the end, Duo finally answered the question. He posts
so many of us Spanish or Spanish, it's hard to
believe that. Just last week I was speaking to Lily,
right before she ended the video call. She told me
he was okay. These words will echo in my soul
for eternity. We know he threatened many of you, sometimes gently,
sometimes with unhinged persistence, but it was never personal. His
(06:19):
mission was clear, make education accessible, one terrifying notification at
a time. Now do a streak on earth. As end,
it's our turn to stand together to continue his legacy.
We're carrying the torch forward as a company, as a team,
and as friends. While Do is dead, duely was stronger
than ever. Rest assured no employees were affected by this,
(06:41):
except maybe emotionally. He was a good album. We're excited
to write up to the occasion. In the face of
the loss of our Towerking Fuzzy, Lime Green, fictional.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Crust out friend.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
So in his honor, let's do what he would have wanted.
Open up the app, do a lesson and share your
fondest memories and maybe just maybe just give the street freeze.
Keep the flame lit for Duo who knows he might
just come back.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And then the video ends with a picture of the
duo Lego mascot lying on the ground and it says,
fly high, Duo. It was either before this or after
this that a lot of other companies kind of got
in with the joke, Like a lot of different companies
were posting like good riddance and all this stuff. Let
me get you an example here, it says brands, including
(07:29):
ex itself immediately jumped in on the action, poking fun
at the green Owl's death. The Empire State Building simply
reposted the original statement with the word good while Netflix
created a squid game like leaderboard eliminating Duo. The owl
hoots Sweet, which also has a owl mascot, replied good riddance,
and the World Health Organization confirmed that Duo's cause of
death was definitely not smallpox for those who were concerned.
(07:53):
So obviously a bunch of other companies kind of got
in on the fun. And this isn't the first time
a company has killed up their mask, right mister Peanut's death,
I think probably the most recent one that was a
couple of years ago. I think they did have they
had like a Super Bowl ad for it, so it's
not entirely like a new concept of like oh hey,
our mascot's dead and blah blah blah, and like mister
(08:13):
Peanut eventually came back as well, or I think it
might have been his son.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I don't know. I didn't.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I didn't follow that campaign. I followed this campaign because
it's the most recent and it's been in my face
a lot because again, schrolling Instagram, you see it come up.
Duelingo has somehow inserted itself into I guess, like the
meme culture now or I don't know if it was
self inserted it really it seems like people had brought
it into the meme culture and the company did a
really good job of just like playing with the meme.
(08:39):
They could have been boring, they could be like the
du don't say dual was killing people. No, they leaned
into it hard. They like they went and they fully
produced a music video and song called Bring My Parents Back,
featuring a little kid telling Dulingo to blame bring his
parents back because either they skipped a lesson or he
skipped a lesson.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I don't know. It's weird.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And then Lingo also partnered with Squid Games to do
like some Squid Games ads, so they're very much with
the times. But man, this this campaign got really weird
and very strange because you know, again they kill the owl,
they kill they kill the mascots, like there's all this
like gen Z type marketing, and I don't know if
it's really gen Z. It really it feels like gen
(09:21):
X writing for gen Z, Like, oh, this is what
gen Z kids talk about. But they killed off the
other mascots. It says here falst Off the bear was killed,
but the illegal hunting Zari, the teenage girl died from
a lack of bidet in the office's bathroom. Lily the
little golf team, she was passed away. She passed away
(09:43):
from a sincere hug by a cute child. They even
went so far as to sell dual coffin plushies of
each character with like little x's over their eyes. They
really just went all out with this, which is interesting.
Come to find out, there's a website called Bringback dot
Dual Lingo dot com and if you click on it,
it's already passed by now.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
But they had a goal.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
It looks like the goal was like fifty billion XP
from the top fifteen countries in the world to save Duo,
and that was kind of like the whole point of
this is to get people to do their lessons and
revive the bird. Now, the thing is that wasn't really
marketed that well, because out of all these apps, or
out of all these these ads that I saw, or
(10:24):
these like memes or whatever, there was never like, hey, guys,
like go to this website and you know, enter your
your XP will be loaded into this.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I don't think it was a volunteery thing.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I think they just they just kept track with the
XP for a certain amount of time, which is I
think two weeks, because he died on the eleventh and
as of this recording is twenty sixth and I think
he came back yesterday, which was a twenty fifth. There
wasn't really like a special tab on your doling a app.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
You know, my wife uses it.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
I have some friends who use it, and I've asked
them if, hey, did you notice anything on the app
that was like, hey, bring Duo back, And they said no,
they did notice it. They just thought the memes were
kind of funny and weird. And that's that's kind of
what I'm getting to in this. I don't know if
the marketing really worked. I mean, it worked for this
because people still do their lessons, but I don't think
(11:13):
it really like the push wasn't to drive people to
do the lessons. It was just like a weird ad campaign.
And if you know anything about advertising, the weirder is
sometimes the better it is because it gets people to
remember these things. And obviously it got me to remember this.
I'm talking about it right now on.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
This podcast, so here you go.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I don't know, I don't know how to feel about it.
I think it was just like a fun thing they did,
but I as far as like a campaign that works,
I don't know if it really worked out too well
for them.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
And I guess I can't.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Say that because they did it did it got people
to do lessons. I just it's such a weird thing
they did.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
It's just a weird.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
It's like, what was the point Because people were still
doing their lessons and they continue to do their lessons.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It's so strange.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And actually, as of this morning, as I sat down
to record this due Lingo put out another message and
I'll play that for you here, and I'm.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Reporting live from due Lingo's junior role put.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
A new turn into a murder mystery, and you killed him.
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up
in this situation. Let's go back to where this whole
thing started. I've always had two main goals. Get people
to do their lesson and get Duaalipa to notice me.
Neither was working. I had to do something drastic, so
I thought, why not kill one green bird with two stones?
So I called up bootleg Jack Antonoff with my idea.
But who would do the deed. I've collected many enemies
(12:36):
throughout the years, and it would be easy to blame
any one of them.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
I know who.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
I could frame Jimmy with multiple Jimmies at foul play.
I'd let everyone speculate. But what I didn't realize is
so many people would jump at the opportunity to be
the cause of my death, even using my death to
hit your quarterly KPIs Now. I know the death video
looked incredibly realistic, but it was all edited. The cyber
truck was mainly there for dramatic effect and perhaps some
social commentary. I realized my friends were being asked too
(13:00):
many questions and they were too nice to lie, so
it was apparent I had to make them fake their
deaths too. Once again, not enough of you were doing
your lessons, so I had to go to extreme measures.
Don't you ever learn your lesson? I wanted to see
how many of you would bother to bring me back
to life. I quickly found out who the real ones were.
Thank you Zachary Lumston for commenting on every single social
post for the past five years and for always doing
your lessons. But most importantly, do have finally notice me?
(13:22):
She still hasn't said anything about my ashes I sent her,
So yeah, was there some drama?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Sure?
Speaker 6 (13:27):
Did some people get falsely arrested along the way?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Maybe?
Speaker 6 (13:30):
Did I sell custom coffins? I had to pay off
the cyber truck rental somehow. I guess you could say
I put the fun in funeral. So yeah, please just
do your lesson because next time it won't be a
fake death.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
So I'll let you decide. Dear listener, did this work?
Do you do? Do lingo?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Let us know in the comments or email us at
on the gopod twenty twenty three at gmail dot com.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Let us know do you do doo?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Lingo.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Did you notice anything?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Did you go to this website at any time while
you while this was happening while duo was dead, you know,
allegedly dead. Could this be a test for something bigger
to come? Are they going to start doing these like
worldwide competitions for these language learning lessons, because that would
be interesting, right you. This is a test to see
how much how many people in these countries are actually
(14:20):
doing their lessons, and maybe eventually you're like, hey, we're
gonna do like once a month, or like once every
three months, once every quarter, we're gonna do who's who's
the top country learning languages or something like that. I
don't know what they sent it would be other than
to learn to like learn whatever language you're doing doing
the lesson, you know, keeping the streak up, because that
(14:41):
seems to be the duo's main goal here is just like, hey,
keep doing your lessons, like don't give up, don't stop
learning Spanish or whatever, and they try to keep it
fun and that's that's really that's a good thing. Because
when I was growing up, we had Rosetta Stone and
Rosetta Stone. I mean, they didn't have a cute little
al mascot that threatened you take away your family, and
maybe that's what we need in life. Maybe we just
(15:02):
need a menacing, you know, some sort of menacing creature
to threaten us in order for us to make progress.
I'll let you aside that seeing these memes and seeing
this viral marketing campaign get you to download the app
and actually start learning, because you're curious on what's happening
with du Lingo first of all, and then also maybe
you've always wanted to learn language and this was a push.
(15:24):
Maybe seeing this little green all get run over by
a cybertruck was what got you into learning Spanish.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
On The Girl podcast with Jacob James, it would.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Truly spice up your life.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
James doesn't really read manga or watch anime, and so
so anytime I try to talk to him about manga.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
I just see his eyes like glaze over.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
So I always like to bring this segment up whenever
it's just me, and today I'm going to be talking about.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
The Wolf Never Sleeps.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
The original story was by Shine Bishop, and that's all
one word. I don't know if that's like first name,
last name, alias, couldn't tell you, but the synopsis on
the back of the book says, and the darkest depths
of deadly dungeons, where only the most seasoned of adventurers
can hope to reach. A black world leading to another
world sometimes appears, seeking even greater strength, wealth beyond imagination,
(16:36):
and enemies who can put up a halfway decent struggle. Liken,
the One Eyed Wolf, strides into one such portal the
instant he comes upon it. With no knowledge of the
unfamiliar land, he finds himself in saving a nearby carriage
from attacking dread beast seems like a good as placed
as any to start. So that's your synopsis of the book.
It starts off these two adventurers are in a dungeon.
(16:57):
They kill some monster, and the black world uppears, and
they're like, oh, hey, that's the black world we've heard
about and stories and whatnot. Let's let's step through it,
because that's just that's the whole point. We want to
get better and stronger, and we want adventure. And so
they do, and Likeen and his friend Bode, they kind
of get separated, or they do get separated. The don't like,
they don't kind of get separated, they get separated, and so.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Likings all alone. He doesn't know where Bode is.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
He comes upon this carriage being attacked by monsters, and
these monsters, if he killed them, you can get the
mana from inside them, and the mana is magic. If
you played any kind of like RPG JRPG game, mana
is usually synopsis for magic. So in this world, obviously,
he's like, oh, monsters still have manas, so I'm not
far not too far from wherever i came from. Sorry,
(17:48):
my cat in the background is breaking into my to
my room because they can't leave me alone. He realizes,
you know, hey, like there's still men in this world,
so obviously they have some of the same rules that
we do, but nobody speaks the same language. So there's
there's a bit of a time skip, and he's now
learned the language and he's now kind of like the
(18:09):
princess's like main bodyguard. Eventually she gets married off and
goes to another kingdom, and then Liken is like, oh, hey,
it's time for me to leave. And that's kind of
where the first volume ends, right like, without without giving
you too much of the of the story, that's the
first volume. He shows up to this world, he makes
friends with the locals, he gets into good graces, and
(18:31):
then his job's kind of done and now it's time
to go to the next adventure. He colls some monsters.
There's some monster killing in here. It's not it's not
all just like talking story or whatever. It is quite interesting.
It's interesting to me because in the story he makes
comment about like having a storage system or he has
like abilities and their their parentheses whenever he uses them,
(18:53):
and it kind of reminds me of of a video game,
where you know, you have a storage bag and you
can you know, normally in a video game, you can
store a bunch of stuff that you would never be
able to store in real life, right, Like you can
carry seventeen different types of guns or swords or whatever.
And that's kind of what's going on in this book,
is like he has some sort of magical storage thing.
He's got abilities that he brings up quite a bit.
(19:14):
He even has an amulet that at one point in
the story, it's a plot where he's like, oh, I
had to crawl through so many dungeons to find the ingredients,
and then I had to go find like a magic
person to bless it, and it cost me a fortune
and it would be like a secret rare item in
a video game that you had to like grind a
lot for right, And I apparently gave him like strength
(19:35):
and durability and defense and all this stuff like stats.
So I don't know when that's going to come into
play again. This is only the first volume. There's three
volumes of the book, and it was originally adapted from
a light novel and from what I understand, the manga
just ends and then the story continues in the light
novel like they did. They didn't continue adapting it into
(19:55):
the manga, and so I think they had to write
a satisfying enough ending for the manga, and then it
was like in the very last page, it's that, hey,
if you want to if you want to continue, go
read the light novel series, and it says here the
series has been completed and is not ongoing. The light
novel series, which the manga is based on, was published
(20:15):
from January eighteenth, twenty nineteen to September fourth, twenty twenty
and also consists of eight volumes. As I just said,
in the US, the first volume of the manga was
released on May twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, so it's
it's been out and it's been done with. It's it's
it is a finished series in both light novel and
mongo form. So if this sounds interesting to you, I mean, hey,
(20:39):
go check it out. The Wolf Never Sleeps It was
all right to me.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
I don't know, it didn't really. It didn't really shake
any trees for me, if you know what I mean.
It didn't. It didn't really catch my interest too much.
Like it.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, I kind of want to know if he meets
back up with his friend. I feel like his friend's
gonna come back as an enemy of some sword or something.
But again, this wasn't like all I haven't seen this before,
or oh, this is such an interesting story. It's an
It's it's an issakai. So you know, this guy wakes
up in another in another world. It's kind of one
of those stories. He seems like a genuinely good person.
(21:13):
I don't think he's gonna try to like take it
over anything like Overlord. Will I continue reading? Uh not
not sure, not sure.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
If I will or not. I might. It just kind
of depends.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
But it didn't really pique my interests as much as
like Immortal Hounds has Immortal Hounds was kind of interesting
because like again they had cat and Mouse, crime and
and whatnot kind of on the back and forth of that.
So I yeah, that's my opinion, interesting book. If you
want to read it, go read it. If not, then don't.
But yeah, that's that's been the longa minute. Thanks for
(22:01):
joining me, Thanks for listening and always continuing to listen,
dear listener, We always appreciate it. If you if you
want to contact us, you can find us at on
the Go with Jacob and James on Instagram. You can
find us on Facebook on the Go with Jakembin James.
You can you can find our YouTube On the Go
with Jacob and James across the board. It's on the
Go with Jacobin James. You can also email us at
(22:23):
on thegopod twenty twenty three at gmail dot com. If
you have any questions common to concerns. Let us know
what you think about DUELINGO, let us know what you
think about manga. Just any suggestions. If you want us
to talk about certain topics, let us know. We'll be
happy to discuss what the listeners want. I believe that's
all I got to say today, So I'm on the
go James is on the go.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
We're all on the go.
Wake it up.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I feel so damn good.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
I got a phoner.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Released a new episode today.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Listen to it, my boner owner.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
No better than listen to the Own the Goat Show
with my phone boner.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Welcome back, everybody to the On the Go Show. Now
you might notice pretty soon that it is just me,
Jacob Dantone, your host today or the host for now.
You see, James and I have had conflicting schedules this week.
And don't worry, he didn't get kidnapped by pirates or
trapped in a snowstorm that I'm aware of. We're just
(00:59):
not a to record on the same days together this week.
Now next week it should be back to your regularly
scheduled programming.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
But for now, it's just me.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I would like to bring up something very interesting that's
been going on in the world of commercials.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I know James and I don't really talk about commercials
too much, and I think a lot of people have
negative feelings on advertisements or commercials these days. You know,
YouTube is doing a lot of like wacky stuff with
you with their ads or I think that now they're
embedding the ads into.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
The video as it plays.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I know a lot of people pay extra for streaming
services to like now look at ads and stuff, but
I don't, or some of the streaming services we have,
we don't pay, so we see ads. We're also in
the social media digital age to where everything you see
on the Internet is almost an ad. Every influencer is
an advertisement in some way. You might not realize it.
(01:57):
But I mean a lot of the times they're advertising themselves,
which is fine self advertisement, that's obviously the point.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
That's how you get your brand, that's how you get
notice and all that great stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
But sometimes, like you know, they'll they'll do they'll do
brand deals with certain companies and they'll we'll talk about
different items or like you you. The thing with influences
is it's gotten. So how do I think of the word.
It's gotten so convincing that even if you're just scrolling through,
you might not realize it's an ad right away until
(02:27):
they start bringing up a brand. What I want to
talk about today is the latest viral marketing campaign that
du Lingo has been doing. And if you don't know
due Lingo, due Lingo is a language learning app that's
kind of like gamified learning language right It's it gives
you XP there's like daily lessons, there's goals, there's it
(02:49):
makes it more fun to learn different languages. If I've
tried it before, I know a couple of people in
my life are using it. Du Lingo started around twenty eleven,
and over the last few years it's really picked up
a lot. Everybody's not everybody, but a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Have been using it.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
And you know, you might recognize a little cute green
owl mascot. There's been a lot of memes and there's
a lot of jokes that like, hey, if you don't
do your lesson, the owl is gonna come get you. Right,
It's always been a joke because the owl seems sort
of menacing on the app. I don't know he'll he'll
notify you a lot if you need to do a lesson,
And so people started to joke that like, oh, if
(03:26):
if you don't do your lesson du the dual lingo,
I was gonna come kidnap you. And I guess somebody
at the company had noticed this and they started adding
it to their their ads and their notifications, like sometimes
due will pop up and be like, hey, do your
lesson or else, even so much so to where the
mascot on the app will like become angry if you're
(03:49):
not doing a lesson, or I don't know, he'll pretend
to die or he'll pretend to get sick, and you know,
just try to guilt guilt trip you and gaslight you
into coming and doing your lesson.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
And it's all in good fun. Everybody's really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
But something the weird that happened recently, as recently as
just after the the Kendrick Glamar Super Bowl halftime performance.
And I bring up the Kendrick Lamar because it does
tie in to what I'm about to say next. Right
after the Super Bowl halftime performance, Duo du Lingo put
out a little story on their Instagram and social media
pages that says, Drake after attending his own funeral on
(04:24):
National TV. And it's like the little dual Lingo al
He's he's facing away from the camera and his butt
just like inflates and another baby dual Lingo owl comes
out of it, which is very weird and a dick
at Drake because everyone's dicking at Drake after Kendrick Gilmar's performance, well,
I mean before that, but especially after this last like
Super Bowl performance.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
It was really weird, un hinge.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And people were like, oh okay, dull so as a statement,
I suppose. And then like a day or two after that,
it was reported that Dual Lingo had died. He was
hit by a cyber truck and they think a famous
Canadian rapper was involved. Like they brought Drake into this
for some reason. And I don't know if Drake's people
like contacted them right away, because that kind of dropped
(05:10):
real fast.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
That dropped real soon.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Nevertheless, they reported that Dual Lingo had died, it got
a little weird.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
It got a little weird.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Because like they were talking about fake funerals, and eventually
all the other characters got killed off. And there's a
message from the CEO which I'm gonna play for you
right now.
Speaker 5 (05:30):
Hey all, it's Luis fun On, co founder CEO of
Dual Lingo, otherwise known as Duo's daddy. I have a
prepared statement that I will read in life of recent events.
As I'm sure you've seen by now, Duo was hit
by a cyber truck. And it looks like in fact,
every character at Due Lingo is dead on behalf of
(05:51):
their friends, family and dua lipa, we honor their memory.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I guess.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
In the end, Duo finally answered the question. He posts
so many of us Spanish or Spanish, it's hard to
believe that. Just last week I was speaking to Lily,
right before she ended the video call. She told me
he was okay. These words will echo in my soul
for eternity. We know he threatened many of you, sometimes gently,
sometimes with unhinged persistence, but it was never personal. His
(06:19):
mission was clear, make education accessible, one terrifying notification at
a time. Now do a streak on earth. As end,
it's our turn to stand together to continue his legacy.
We're carrying the torch forward as a company, as a team,
and as friends. While Do is dead, duely was stronger
than ever. Rest assured no employees were affected by this,
(06:41):
except maybe emotionally. He was a good album. We're excited
to write up to the occasion. In the face of
the loss of our Towerking Fuzzy, Lime Green, fictional.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Crust out friend.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
So in his honor, let's do what he would have wanted.
Open up the app, do a lesson and share your
fondest memories and maybe just maybe just give the street freeze.
Keep the flame lit for Duo who knows he might
just come back.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
And then the video ends with a picture of the
duo Lego mascot lying on the ground and it says,
fly high, Duo. It was either before this or after
this that a lot of other companies kind of got
in with the joke, Like a lot of different companies
were posting like good riddance and all this stuff. Let
me get you an example here, it says brands, including
(07:29):
ex itself immediately jumped in on the action, poking fun
at the green Owl's death. The Empire State Building simply
reposted the original statement with the word good while Netflix
created a squid game like leaderboard eliminating Duo. The owl
hoots Sweet, which also has a owl mascot, replied good riddance,
and the World Health Organization confirmed that Duo's cause of
death was definitely not smallpox for those who were concerned.
(07:53):
So obviously a bunch of other companies kind of got
in on the fun. And this isn't the first time
a company has killed up their mask, right mister Peanut's death,
I think probably the most recent one that was a
couple of years ago. I think they did have they
had like a Super Bowl ad for it, so it's
not entirely like a new concept of like oh hey,
our mascot's dead and blah blah blah, and like mister
(08:13):
Peanut eventually came back as well, or I think it
might have been his son.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I don't know. I didn't.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I didn't follow that campaign. I followed this campaign because
it's the most recent and it's been in my face
a lot because again, schrolling Instagram, you see it come up.
Duelingo has somehow inserted itself into I guess, like the
meme culture now or I don't know if it was
self inserted it really it seems like people had brought
it into the meme culture and the company did a
really good job of just like playing with the meme.
(08:39):
They could have been boring, they could be like the
du don't say dual was killing people. No, they leaned
into it hard. They like they went and they fully
produced a music video and song called Bring My Parents Back,
featuring a little kid telling Dulingo to blame bring his
parents back because either they skipped a lesson or he
skipped a lesson.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
I don't know. It's weird.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
And then Lingo also partnered with Squid Games to do
like some Squid Games ads, so they're very much with
the times. But man, this this campaign got really weird
and very strange because you know, again they kill the owl,
they kill they kill the mascots, like there's all this
like gen Z type marketing, and I don't know if
it's really gen Z. It really it feels like gen
(09:21):
X writing for gen Z, Like, oh, this is what
gen Z kids talk about. But they killed off the
other mascots. It says here falst Off the bear was killed,
but the illegal hunting Zari, the teenage girl died from
a lack of bidet in the office's bathroom. Lily the
little golf team, she was passed away. She passed away
(09:43):
from a sincere hug by a cute child. They even
went so far as to sell dual coffin plushies of
each character with like little x's over their eyes. They
really just went all out with this, which is interesting.
Come to find out, there's a website called Bringback dot
Dual Lingo dot com and if you click on it,
it's already passed by now.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
But they had a goal.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
It looks like the goal was like fifty billion XP
from the top fifteen countries in the world to save Duo,
and that was kind of like the whole point of
this is to get people to do their lessons and
revive the bird. Now, the thing is that wasn't really
marketed that well, because out of all these apps, or
out of all these these ads that I saw, or
(10:24):
these like memes or whatever, there was never like, hey, guys,
like go to this website and you know, enter your
your XP will be loaded into this.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
I don't think it was a volunteery thing.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
I think they just they just kept track with the
XP for a certain amount of time, which is I
think two weeks, because he died on the eleventh and
as of this recording is twenty sixth and I think
he came back yesterday, which was a twenty fifth. There
wasn't really like a special tab on your doling a app.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
You know, my wife uses it.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
I have some friends who use it, and I've asked
them if, hey, did you notice anything on the app
that was like, hey, bring Duo back, And they said no,
they did notice it. They just thought the memes were
kind of funny and weird. And that's that's kind of
what I'm getting to in this. I don't know if
the marketing really worked. I mean, it worked for this
because people still do their lessons, but I don't think
(11:13):
it really like the push wasn't to drive people to
do the lessons. It was just like a weird ad campaign.
And if you know anything about advertising, the weirder is
sometimes the better it is because it gets people to
remember these things. And obviously it got me to remember this.
I'm talking about it right now on.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
This podcast, so here you go.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I don't know, I don't know how to feel about it.
I think it was just like a fun thing they did,
but I as far as like a campaign that works,
I don't know if it really worked out too well
for them.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
And I guess I can't.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Say that because they did it did it got people
to do lessons. I just it's such a weird thing
they did.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
It's just a weird.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
It's like, what was the point Because people were still
doing their lessons and they continue to do their lessons.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
It's so strange.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And actually, as of this morning, as I sat down
to record this due Lingo put out another message and
I'll play that for you here, and I'm.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Reporting live from due Lingo's junior role put.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
A new turn into a murder mystery, and you killed him.
Speaker 6 (12:15):
Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I ended up
in this situation. Let's go back to where this whole
thing started. I've always had two main goals. Get people
to do their lesson and get Duaalipa to notice me.
Neither was working. I had to do something drastic, so
I thought, why not kill one green bird with two stones?
So I called up bootleg Jack Antonoff with my idea.
But who would do the deed. I've collected many enemies
(12:36):
throughout the years, and it would be easy to blame
any one of them.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
I know who.
Speaker 6 (12:39):
I could frame Jimmy with multiple Jimmies at foul play.
I'd let everyone speculate. But what I didn't realize is
so many people would jump at the opportunity to be
the cause of my death, even using my death to
hit your quarterly KPIs Now. I know the death video
looked incredibly realistic, but it was all edited. The cyber
truck was mainly there for dramatic effect and perhaps some
social commentary. I realized my friends were being asked too
(13:00):
many questions and they were too nice to lie, so
it was apparent I had to make them fake their
deaths too. Once again, not enough of you were doing
your lessons, so I had to go to extreme measures.
Don't you ever learn your lesson? I wanted to see
how many of you would bother to bring me back
to life. I quickly found out who the real ones were.
Thank you Zachary Lumston for commenting on every single social
post for the past five years and for always doing
your lessons. But most importantly, do have finally notice me?
(13:22):
She still hasn't said anything about my ashes I sent her,
So yeah, was there some drama?
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Sure?
Speaker 6 (13:27):
Did some people get falsely arrested along the way?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Maybe?
Speaker 6 (13:30):
Did I sell custom coffins? I had to pay off
the cyber truck rental somehow. I guess you could say
I put the fun in funeral. So yeah, please just
do your lesson because next time it won't be a
fake death.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
So I'll let you decide. Dear listener, did this work?
Do you do? Do lingo?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Let us know in the comments or email us at
on the gopod twenty twenty three at gmail dot com.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Let us know do you do doo?
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Lingo.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Did you notice anything?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Did you go to this website at any time while
you while this was happening while duo was dead, you know,
allegedly dead. Could this be a test for something bigger
to come? Are they going to start doing these like
worldwide competitions for these language learning lessons, because that would
be interesting, right you. This is a test to see
how much how many people in these countries are actually
(14:20):
doing their lessons, and maybe eventually you're like, hey, we're
gonna do like once a month, or like once every
three months, once every quarter, we're gonna do who's who's
the top country learning languages or something like that. I
don't know what they sent it would be other than
to learn to like learn whatever language you're doing doing
the lesson, you know, keeping the streak up, because that
(14:41):
seems to be the duo's main goal here is just like, hey,
keep doing your lessons, like don't give up, don't stop
learning Spanish or whatever, and they try to keep it
fun and that's that's really that's a good thing. Because
when I was growing up, we had Rosetta Stone and
Rosetta Stone. I mean, they didn't have a cute little
al mascot that threatened you take away your family, and
maybe that's what we need in life. Maybe we just
(15:02):
need a menacing, you know, some sort of menacing creature
to threaten us in order for us to make progress.
I'll let you aside that seeing these memes and seeing
this viral marketing campaign get you to download the app
and actually start learning, because you're curious on what's happening
with du Lingo first of all, and then also maybe
you've always wanted to learn language and this was a push.
(15:24):
Maybe seeing this little green all get run over by
a cybertruck was what got you into learning Spanish.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
On The Girl podcast with Jacob James, it would.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Truly spice up your life.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
James doesn't really read manga or watch anime, and so
so anytime I try to talk to him about manga.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
I just see his eyes like glaze over.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
So I always like to bring this segment up whenever
it's just me, and today I'm going to be talking about.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
The Wolf Never Sleeps.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
The original story was by Shine Bishop, and that's all
one word. I don't know if that's like first name,
last name, alias, couldn't tell you, but the synopsis on
the back of the book says, and the darkest depths
of deadly dungeons, where only the most seasoned of adventurers
can hope to reach. A black world leading to another
world sometimes appears, seeking even greater strength, wealth beyond imagination,
(16:36):
and enemies who can put up a halfway decent struggle. Liken,
the One Eyed Wolf, strides into one such portal the
instant he comes upon it. With no knowledge of the
unfamiliar land, he finds himself in saving a nearby carriage
from attacking dread beast seems like a good as placed
as any to start. So that's your synopsis of the book.
It starts off these two adventurers are in a dungeon.
(16:57):
They kill some monster, and the black world uppears, and
they're like, oh, hey, that's the black world we've heard
about and stories and whatnot. Let's let's step through it,
because that's just that's the whole point. We want to
get better and stronger, and we want adventure. And so
they do, and Likeen and his friend Bode, they kind
of get separated, or they do get separated. The don't like,
they don't kind of get separated, they get separated, and so.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Likings all alone. He doesn't know where Bode is.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
He comes upon this carriage being attacked by monsters, and
these monsters, if he killed them, you can get the
mana from inside them, and the mana is magic. If
you played any kind of like RPG JRPG game, mana
is usually synopsis for magic. So in this world, obviously,
he's like, oh, monsters still have manas, so I'm not
far not too far from wherever i came from. Sorry,
(17:48):
my cat in the background is breaking into my to
my room because they can't leave me alone. He realizes,
you know, hey, like there's still men in this world,
so obviously they have some of the same rules that
we do, but nobody speaks the same language. So there's
there's a bit of a time skip, and he's now
learned the language and he's now kind of like the
(18:09):
princess's like main bodyguard. Eventually she gets married off and
goes to another kingdom, and then Liken is like, oh, hey,
it's time for me to leave. And that's kind of
where the first volume ends, right like, without without giving
you too much of the of the story, that's the
first volume. He shows up to this world, he makes
friends with the locals, he gets into good graces, and
(18:31):
then his job's kind of done and now it's time
to go to the next adventure. He colls some monsters.
There's some monster killing in here. It's not it's not
all just like talking story or whatever. It is quite interesting.
It's interesting to me because in the story he makes
comment about like having a storage system or he has
like abilities and their their parentheses whenever he uses them,
(18:53):
and it kind of reminds me of of a video game,
where you know, you have a storage bag and you
can you know, normally in a video game, you can
store a bunch of stuff that you would never be
able to store in real life, right, Like you can
carry seventeen different types of guns or swords or whatever.
And that's kind of what's going on in this book,
is like he has some sort of magical storage thing.
He's got abilities that he brings up quite a bit.
(19:14):
He even has an amulet that at one point in
the story, it's a plot where he's like, oh, I
had to crawl through so many dungeons to find the ingredients,
and then I had to go find like a magic
person to bless it, and it cost me a fortune
and it would be like a secret rare item in
a video game that you had to like grind a
lot for right, And I apparently gave him like strength
(19:35):
and durability and defense and all this stuff like stats.
So I don't know when that's going to come into
play again. This is only the first volume. There's three
volumes of the book, and it was originally adapted from
a light novel and from what I understand, the manga
just ends and then the story continues in the light
novel like they did. They didn't continue adapting it into
(19:55):
the manga, and so I think they had to write
a satisfying enough ending for the manga, and then it
was like in the very last page, it's that, hey,
if you want to if you want to continue, go
read the light novel series, and it says here the
series has been completed and is not ongoing. The light
novel series, which the manga is based on, was published
(20:15):
from January eighteenth, twenty nineteen to September fourth, twenty twenty
and also consists of eight volumes. As I just said,
in the US, the first volume of the manga was
released on May twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, so it's
it's been out and it's been done with. It's it's
it is a finished series in both light novel and
mongo form. So if this sounds interesting to you, I mean, hey,
(20:39):
go check it out. The Wolf Never Sleeps It was
all right to me.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
I don't know, it didn't really. It didn't really shake
any trees for me, if you know what I mean.
It didn't. It didn't really catch my interest too much.
Like it.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, I kind of want to know if he meets
back up with his friend. I feel like his friend's
gonna come back as an enemy of some sword or something.
But again, this wasn't like all I haven't seen this before,
or oh, this is such an interesting story. It's an
It's it's an issakai. So you know, this guy wakes
up in another in another world. It's kind of one
of those stories. He seems like a genuinely good person.
(21:13):
I don't think he's gonna try to like take it
over anything like Overlord. Will I continue reading? Uh not
not sure, not sure.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
If I will or not. I might. It just kind
of depends.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
But it didn't really pique my interests as much as
like Immortal Hounds has Immortal Hounds was kind of interesting
because like again they had cat and Mouse, crime and
and whatnot kind of on the back and forth of that.
So I yeah, that's my opinion, interesting book. If you
want to read it, go read it. If not, then don't.
But yeah, that's that's been the longa minute. Thanks for
(22:01):
joining me, Thanks for listening and always continuing to listen,
dear listener, We always appreciate it. If you if you
want to contact us, you can find us at on
the Go with Jacob and James on Instagram. You can
find us on Facebook on the Go with Jakembin James.
You can you can find our YouTube On the Go
with Jacob and James across the board. It's on the
Go with Jacobin James. You can also email us at
(22:23):
on thegopod twenty twenty three at gmail dot com. If
you have any questions common to concerns. Let us know
what you think about DUELINGO, let us know what you
think about manga. Just any suggestions. If you want us
to talk about certain topics, let us know. We'll be
happy to discuss what the listeners want. I believe that's
all I got to say today, So I'm on the
go James is on the go.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
We're all on the go.
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