We taught TV fans to command dragons.
How do you tap into the conversation around the most anticipated TV series ever? You speak the language.
For the new Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, Duolingo partnered with HBO Max to create High Valyrian lessons that teach fans the fictional language from the show. We developed the lessons with the inventor of the language, David Peterson, and featured real phrases from episodes. To launch the course, we bombarded Times Square and Comic-Con with cryptic billboards written all in High Valyrian, hosted a learning challenge with a life-size Valyrian Steel sword as the prize, and filmed viral content of Duo the Owl on the iron throne.
“High Valyrian Lessons” became the #1 most talked about campaign for Duolingo ever and helped drive fans to HBO Max’s most watched premiere in history. It generated more than 150 press mentions and 700M earned media impressions around the world with a single TikTok from the campaign receiving 10.8M views alone. One learner even decided to hold her entire wedding in High Valyrian. So far over 300,000 fans have started learning High Valyrian, but most importantly 43% of them will go on to learn another real language like Spanish or French next.
Press: Fast Company, Collider, Digiday, CNET, Gamespot
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