ADdicted: Duolingo's Bad Joke

I got very excited when the teaser trailer for "Love Language" showed up in my LinkedIn feed on March 29th, 2023.

"Love Language" was a teaser for a show from language-learning app Duolingo that was to appear on the Peacock network.

I wasn't excited because I'm a fan of reality shows; I'm generally not.

I was excited because I thought this was an example of a brand taking a bold, creative approach to content marketing that would not only showcase the features and benefits of its product but also do so in a way that people would actually want to watch. This would be a rare accomplishment: most content marketing from brands is very, very bad.

Here's the teaser for the show so you can judge the appeal for yourself:

I was so excited about this bold idea that I shared the video and the message below with my 11,700+ Linkedin followers...

---

---

Terrific, right?

Except it turned out to be Duolingo's 2023 April Fool's Day Prank.

(Which, it should be noted, was released two days early. April Fool pranks are only supposed to happen on April 1st, folks...)

But I admit it, Duolingo got me... April Fools on me!

I think the joke's on Duolingo, though.

Because this was actually a