The One Show

The One Show is the world's most prestigious award show in advertising and design. For over 50 years, the Gold Pencil has been regarded as one of the top prizes in the creative industry. The One Show has a rich legacy of honoring some of the most groundbreaking ideas, created by some of the most remarkable minds in creativity.

2022 One Show - Brand-Side / In-House

Yiddish for Bagel

Agency Duolingo / Pittsburgh

Client Duolingo
BACK TO RESULTS

Annual ID

OS22_BS021M

About the Work

How do you get people to start learning an endangered language like Yiddish? Bagels. Because every time you order a bagel, you speak a bit of Yiddish. Duolingo turned this dying language into a new currency by partnering with iconic delis across the country and letting people pay for a free bagel and schmear with a Yiddish phrase.

For the activation, our in-house creative team designed special in-store signage featuring our mischievous owl mascot and directions on how to say the Yiddish phrase. Since the project was done entirely in-house, our creative team was able to work directly with those who built the Yiddish language course to ensure accuracy and proper representation. Then, we also created custom wax paper, napkins, and bags with the campaign line “Bagel is Yiddish for Bagel.” On social media, we shared more Yiddish words one might already know and drove audiences to visit the deli nearest them through location-targeted organic posts.

The launch earned 1.4 billion impressions, national and global TV coverage, a front page article in the Wall Street Journal print edition, and #yiddish became a trending topic on Twitter. All the attention resulted in over 350,000 new sign-ups with $0 spent on paid media. So far, we’ve increased the total number of potential Yiddish speakers worldwide by over 58%. Already in the United States there are more Yiddish learners on Duolingo than native speakers.