What's the Secret Behind Streaking?

Why Every Brand Can Learn From Duolingo

I love the power of ‘nudges’; psychological ploys to steer people one way or another. They should really be the backbone of any graduate course on marketing and advertising, but that’s a debate for another day…

One such nudge is given to millions of people every day by the likes of Duolingo and The New York Times (via games like Wordle).

As Fast Company writes:

“An activity streak has the power to compel behaviour, and marketers have taken note.”

Let’s dig into the why

There are many reasons why streaks are so popular, including our love for ‘collecting’ things, but perhaps the most important is that they are fun. To quote the same article:

“Streaks can serve to gamify the underlying activity by creating rules and quantifying the outcome, and many people enjoy the challenge of a game.”

And yet, this tactic feels massively under-utilised by the majority of brands. It’s obvious to use it for a literal game like Wordle, a social app like Snapchat or a mindfulness service like Headspace, but only Duolingo seems to have taken the concept and made it work for a less expected category.

There is a risk in making people ‘addicted’ to their streaks, but it certainly feels like the benefits are worth exploring. In addition to increasing repetitive interactions with the brand, it gives fresh angles for PR stories, like which demographics have the longest streaks.

Why does this matter for marketers?

For example, a food brand could create a streak of cooking or eating dinner as a family. And a fitness brand could have fun with a streak of exercising. Or a beauty brand could create a streak of following a nightly beauty regime.

The possibilities are endless!