Naver's Webtoon + Duolingo: vertical scroll comics for brand development in the USA

I woke up this morning to a simple screenshot in a group chat from my brother in Chicago. He did get our whole family hooked on Duolingo during our vacation this summer, so I wasn't surprised to see a friendly green face staring back at me.

If you're familiar with the concept of the language learning app and its motivational practices, you know that my first reaction was, "oh what fresh hell hath Duo concocted for us today?" as I stared at the sad face icon beckoning me to play from my own home screen. It'll have to wait, Duo, for I now have a greater mission to achieve first!

To my amusement, our little birdy buddy wasn't coming at us with a guilt trip or an insult this morning. No -- he came to hawk new wares. Duolingo has launched a 5-episode webtoon campaign in partnership with Naver's Webtoon, an app for reading original vertical scroll comics from all over the world, in dozens of languages, and often for free.

For the hundreds of times that I have tried to explain what a webtoon / vertical scroll comic is over the past decade as we've worked to make webtoons or vertical scroll comics "a thing" here in France, it was a full-circle moment to have one of my family members on the other side of the world say, "Neat! That's like what you do!"

And what a context -- An app that I love, a creative marketing/acquisition campaign pulling on recognizable IP and developing it across diverse forms of digital media? I am in awe and admiration. I've been using Duolingo off and on for over ten years and I greatly respect the work of Luis von Ahn. His episode on Guy Raz's "How I Built This" podcast is easily in my top three. This is by far one of my favorite start-up stories of all time, and seeing them take even a tiny step into the vertical scroll realm is hugely motivating to me.

To the Webtoon app we go!

Let's dig in. I didn't have to download anything and I'm not the target because I'm already a Super user, but I was greeted with the informative pop-up explaining the ins and outs of the offers they are running. There are two different limited-time deals targeting free readers and subscribers alike.

I suspect there are already a lot of Webtoon users who also use Duolingo though because not all comics get translated but many Webtoon artists and authors have very passionate fanbases -- the kind that would literally learn a language in order to be able to engage with their work and community. As comics are such an accessible reading format, fans can take the foreign language bubble-by-bubble and panel-by-panel to digest it and learn. Both apps have an exceptional ,truly "free" offers (no credit card required, no time limits) but with clear advantages to subscribing (putting aside of course the financial impact on the comic creator's side, that's not the subject of this article).

About the limited event

I clicked to read and jumped right into the five-episode event. I love that it's only five episodes, and that each one actually felt like it could be from an actual comic book or animated series. I already "know" the characters as a user, so they didn't need all of the often overly-heavy or even clunky introductory episodes you tend to get towards the beginning of an epic multi-season webtoon series with dozens of episodes that often don't serve a plot or purpose. This short format employs (in my opinion) a more Americanized-style of story telling where the jokes hit, and you move on to the next thing. In the end, it's wrapped up enough to give you closure, but not enough that there can't be more or that you don't want more. I would totally read more Duo comics, and even better if I can do so in one of the languages I'm learning -- which i'm sure is where this could be heading. I love being able to see how they are testing this market and I'm so curious about the reader metrics. Yes, I am such a sucker for spotting market research in plain sight. Ain't she a beaut?

At the end of each of the first four episodes, there is a progression pop-up that is very similar to Duolingo's style of in-game communication to let you know where you stand in your goal of hitting your individual selected objective. In this case, the reward for "Reading Event" completion is a two-month Super Duolingo trial. I suspect on Naver's side, the goal was to push dormant users back towards the app and get them to update it to a later version in addition to testing out their premium offer, or re-engaging as a premium user as that's a criteria for using the "big" two-month reward. As a product/marketing person, I appreciate this discreet push and the clever way to reel sleepy readers back in. Remember us? You might have gotten distracted by the latest thing on Netflix, but we're still here when you're ready for a change of pace and style.

About the comics

I am not ashamed to say that I am an "Elder Millennial," and the writer Karen Buchanan (@drbobdoodles) really nailed her target. It's not written to be taken seriously and draws heavily from the cultural references of my generation. There were just enough funny butts (à la Spongebob Squarepants in season 1, episode 18 "Texas") and throwbacks (Duo seeing a past version of his design looking wrecked) to keep me scrolling for the couple of minutes it took to read each episode.

I will admit that I was skeptical that these would end up looking more like a blatant marketing scheme, but they ended up being (IMO) a very well-crafted brand content derivative that could easily stand alone and find their own audience outside of Duo's core base of language learners.

I won't say any more because I want all of my elder millennial pals with an early-2000s sense of humor and culture to go and read them and challenge yourselves to find all the meme references. They did not disappoint.

I don't work for either of these companies, so here's some more info if you're interested:

More on Naver Webtoon: https://www.webtoons.com/en/

More on Duolingo: https://www.duolingo.com/

For more chat about webtoons (aka vertical scroll comics), comic or manga adaptations of paper to digital / digital to paper, or print comics/BD/etc. and their potential for use in brand development, media, or marketing campaigns, feel free to send me a message!