Duolingo Turns Ullu Da Pattha Into A Compliment For Punjabi Learners
Duolingo has launched a Learn English from Punjabi course with a campaign that takes one of Punjabi's better-known insults and turns it into a badge.
- Course: Learn English from Punjabi, the second North Indian regional course after Hindi
- Campaign: Ullu Da Pattha
- Agency: Talented, with Calm Kaam producing
- Director: Anant Sharma, with Bushra Shariff producing
- Creatives: Ankush Sabharwal and Leena Gupta
Why The Duolingo Pun Works Better Than Most
Ullu da pattha is a fond insult, roughly the son of an owl, used to call someone a fool. Duolingo's mascot is an owl. The campaign reclaims the phrase so that being an ullu da pattha means being one of Duo's own, which is the rare case of a brand's existing asset and a language's existing idiom meeting without either being forced.
The films sit inside recognisable Punjabi settings, with Duo turning up in the middle of the celebration rather than presenting to camera. Humour rather than instruction is doing the persuading, which suits a category where the product is a habit and the barrier is starting rather than continuing.
The Market Behind The Course
Punjabi is spoken by more than 100 million people worldwide, and the course joins Duolingo's existing Bengali, Telugu and Tamil offerings. That is a portfolio decision as much as a marketing one: teaching English from Punjabi rather than from English acknowledges that the learner is not already fluent in the language the app is explaining things in.
Karandeep Singh Kapany, Duolingo's regional marketing director for India and South East Asia, said launching the course in his mother tongue was incredibly meaningful and a moment of real pride. That is the sort of line usually written for a founder, and it lands better here because the person saying it is also the market. More campaign coverage.