The QatarF.C. was founded in January 2021, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the economic crisis worsened the lives of children and their families. At the time, the directors had no idea how to run a football club, but their main purpose was to save the countless children in that community. The biggest challenge was raising money to cover the team's costs. The QatarF.C. players had to take turns with a single ball. Many times, children would skip training because there were no sports materials and uniforms available. Without official support, the directors had to do everything on their own, including paying the team's expenses, such as championship registration fees, player transportation and football field rental. Duolingo found a way to help and also grow brand awareness aligned to its mission of developing the best education in the world and making it available to everyone.

Since we couldn't talk about the World Cup, FIFA, or the games, we found a creative hack to become the official mascot of Qatar. But not Qatar from the Arabian Peninsula in Asia, but rather The Other Qatar, an amateur football team from the small city of Itaguaí, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We sponsored their new uniforms, training materials (balls, cones, water bottles), fan materials (shirts, flags, caps, and horns), advanced payment for training field rental, championship registration fees, and even language training for when they become famous in the sport. Through this, we demonstrated our motivation to help and unite people, joining sports enthusiasts with experts in language learning and, most importantly, helping good people stand for good causes, while tapping into local culture in a relevant way to grow awareness, buzz and brand love.

Duolingo couldn't afford to miss out on one of the biggest moments in world sports, which brings together nations that speak different languages. The company decided to invest in something that aligns with its mission. By sponsoring QatarF.C., which is made up of individuals who, like most Brazilians, are passionate about football, Duolingo reinforced their shared purpose, which is to offer opportunities and alternatives to people through sports and education. In addition, Duolingo encouraged the team to learn a new language, which they know can transform lives. With this context, the focus was to bring new users to the app and to gain visibility for the brand through a multi-channel strategy and relevant communication outlets and journalists. And so, Duolingo mobilized the entire fan base of its mascot, Duo, on social media to help spread the word about this great cause, at a time when visibility was high.

We started the campaign with a social media post about the signing of the Duo mascot contract, giving the impression that we would be official sponsors of the WorldCup. After generating hype, we made a series of posts on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter featuring DuoTheOwl, at the airport heading to "Qatar", leading up to the launch of the video hero on YouTube, which revealed the real sponsorship of QatarF.C. Influencers amplified the buzz, such as CraqueNeto (a specialist in football live streaming on YouTube and sports commentator on TV), who spontaneously showed the new QatarF.C. uniform sponsored by Duolingo to a large audience on his TV show "OsDonosDaBola," as well as a series of digital influencers like Choquei, PerrengueChique, and GossipDoDia, who fueled engagement from the brand's admirer community. Additional media investment was made to target an audience of 18 to 44y fans of sports, football, language learning and entertainment.

The campaign flight started on November 9th and ended on November 20th.

Duolingo became the 2nd most engaging brand in Brazil during the World Cup season, and considered one of the 10 best World Cup campaigns by the press. And to our surprise, we, a brand well known for our push notifications, had a notification pushed on us: FIFA hit us, telling us to finish Qatar F.C. sponsorship campaign. But too late, the campaign was already a hit!

+81.9M media impressions.

+41.1M engagements on social media.

+38M people reached.

243% more engagement than the previous period (40 days).

+39.6M video views.

164K comments.

99.6% positive mentions.

12% brand lift (Youtube absolute ad recall).

and…

1 trophy from the Under-16 Chaperó Golden Cup.

(*) Data Monitoring and Analytics with Sprout, Stilingue, SemRush, InstarAnalytics (Ibope), Google Trends.