Duolingo killed its cartoon owl mascot for another ‘unhinged’ marketing stunt — except in one country

• Duolingo staged its owl mascot’s death for a marketing stunt — except in Japan.
• The campaign reflects Duolingo’s non-traditional and country-specific marketing.
• Marketing efforts helped boost daily active users by 51% and revenue by 41% in the fourth quarter.

In an elaborate marketing campaign this month, Duolingo seemingly killed its viral green owl mascot in every country but one.

“Duo, our owl, faked his death in every single market that we had except for Japan,” Luis von Ahn, the company’s CEO, said on an earnings call on Thursday. “It turns out that in Japan, joking about death is not as kosher. So, in Japan, he was just not dead.”

In an early February campaign, the language learning app announced the “death” of its mascot with a sassy statement. In a post on X, the company wrote: “Authorities are currently investigating his cause of death and we are cooperating fully. Tbh, he probably died waiting for you to do your lesson, but what do we know.”

Pop singer Dua Lipa replied to the X post, and wrote: “Til’ death duo part,” a reference to a long-standing joke about Duo being in love with the artist.

The company went all in: The app’s thumbnail depicted the mascot dead with crossed eyes and his tongue sticking out, and Duolingo’s social handles mourned his death in a series of posts.

On Thursday’s call, von Ahn said Duo returned last week from faking his death because users completed enough language lessons to bring him back.

The campaign reflected the company’s famous nontraditional and country-specific marketing campaigns, which have made the owl mascot and the Duolingo app cultural icons.

Duolingo’s social media accounts for countries like India, Germany, and France feature hyper-local content based on news events, memes, and trends, amassing hundreds of thousands of followers in each of these countries. Duolingo’s Japan Instagram page has posts in Japanese and anime-style art, and they feature Duo participating in local trends.

Last quarter, Duolingo became the first company to use animation to deliver prepared remarks on an earnings call, emphasizing its artificial intelligence push. A company representative told Business Insider that the video would have taken weeks to create with human animators, but generative AI did the job in less than seven minutes.

The company spent $25.6 million on sales and marketing in the quarter that ended in September, up from $22.3 million in the same period in 2023. Breakdowns for the most recent quarter were not available at press time.

“We believe that our unhinged and viral marketing campaigns — like our 5-second Super Bowl ad, Duolingo on Ice, and ‘Owl Game’ partnership with Netflix — contributed to our user growth and the growth of our iconic brand,” the company wrote in a shareholder letter released Thursday.

Daily active users — an important measure for consumer apps — jumped by 51% in the fourth quarter to 40.5 million.

Fourth quarter revenue grew 41% to $209 million, beating analyst expectations of $205 million.

Duolingo’s stock fell over 7% in after-hours trading. The stock is up 57% in the past year.