We were appointed as the creative, PR and social agency for Duolingo in early 2022. If anything, we won the pitch off the strength of our single-minded vision for the brand: to show how learning new languages actually makes us better humans.

And so, when Ukraine was set to travel to Scotland for their first football match since Russia’s invasion, we just knew we had to get involved.

Our goal: show how language learning is something that can unite people and bring them together.

There’s no sport more partizan than football. But if we could get the two groups of national fans to come together on match day, surely there would be no better proof that learning new languages makes us all better humans?

When it comes to international football, there’s one moment before the game where both sets of fans experience the other team’s language in full voice: the national anthems. And that gave us an idea…

What if we could get the Scots to join in and, in an act of love, humanity and sporting solidarity, sing the Ukrainian national anthem before the game?

A couple of wee obstacles to overcome. First, it’s just never happened before. Never, in the history of football, have opposing fans sang their adversary’s anthem. Second, Ukrainian is an incredibly hard language to speak, let alone sing.

Our strategy was simple: trust the Scots to bring the party.

On the day of the match, thousands and thousands of Scottish fans joined their voices with their Ukrainian rivals and belted out the anthem "Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy i slava, i volia". People cried and embraced each other. It was pretty special.

Every national newspaper covered the campaign, repeatedly.

It was spoken about at length by commentators during the match.

It dominated Scottish radio phone-ins and TV interviews in the run up to the game. And, bizarrely, tens of thousands of Scots now know the words to “Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy i slava, i volia”, the anthem of a proud nation, more in need of foreign friends than ever before.

A defiant Ukraine subsequently went on to beat a brave Scottish team 3-1. In his post-match interview, Ukrainian captain Andriy Yarmolenko described the anthen singing as a “very beautiful moment” and thanked the Scottish fans repeatedly. It was the end of Scotland’s World Cup hopes. It didn’t matter. The two groups of fans went out together in Glasgow and partied for hours and hours after. Learning new languages really does make us all better humans.