Mumbai: What began as a language-learning app has steadily evolved into a multi-disciplinary learning platform—and now, Duolingo is bringing one of India’s oldest and most revered games, chess, into the cultural spotlight. With its latest campaign for the Duolingo Chess course, the brand teams up with creative agency Talented and Indian chess grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, presenting the sport through a bold, contemporary lens.
Duolingo’s chess course has rapidly gained popularity worldwide, particularly in India—a nation synonymous with chess excellence. While featuring a young grandmaster is not uncommon, the campaign stands out for how Praggnanandhaa is portrayed. Departing from traditional stereotypes, he appears as confident, stylish, sharp, and modern—an aspirational yet relatable figure who embodies the new face of chess.
The campaign film and striking outdoor billboards across Chennai and other Indian cities showcase Praggnanandhaa in a contemporary interpretation of Madras checks, posed alongside Duolingo’s iconic mascot. The visuals have sparked widespread admiration online, with netizens applauding the grandmaster’s refreshed avatar and the brand’s approach to elevating chess culture.
Karandeep Singh Kapany, Regional Marketing Director at Duolingo, said, “Chess has long carried the perception of being either overly intellectual or inaccessible. Our ambition was to change that — to make the game inviting rather than intimidating. The Duolingo chess course is designed to democratize the sport and bring it to a much wider audience. Choosing Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa as the face of the course in India was a natural decision. He represents a new generation of chess excellence that is modern, aspirational, and deeply relatable. By presenting him through the same cultural lens we reserve for mainstream icons, we’re simply acknowledging what the chess community already knows: this is a sport with stars, stories, and a massive, passionate following.”
The chess community, in particular, has welcomed the campaign, appreciating a mainstream brand for spotlighting its champions with the kind of cultural reverence typically reserved for pop icons and athletes.
Explaining the creative direction, Shania Pereira and Pearl Alex, Creatives at Talented, said, “Praggnanandhaa deserves to be portrayed as the force he is, but as never seen before: iconic, commanding, and unmistakably stylish. Those who noticed the Madras Checks in his wardrobe have correctly read them as a deliberate nod to Tamil Nadu – his roots, and the land that has given India so many grandmasters. Conceptualizing a shoot like this meant stepping outside familiar territory, as chess has rarely been framed through an editorial lens. The fact that this avatar has surprised the internet as much as it has only means it was long overdue.”
Adding to the filmmaking perspective, director duo Akimbo—M G Bopanna and Mandakini—said, “In India, fame manifests in chaotic ways and we wanted to create small realistic vignettes of that with Praggnanandhaa. We worked closely on the script with Talented to try and achieve that. Thinking about the film vertical-first was a challenge for us. It changes variables ranging from cinematography to set design. And shooting with Praggnananda was a tick of the old bucketlist.”
View this post on Instagram
