‘Dead the sh*t out of it’: How Duolingo scored its most viral hit ever by murdering its mascot

It took Duolingo more than a decade to grow its owl mascot, Duo, from a cute cartoon character into a social media star with tens of millions of followers. Then Duolingo’s marketing team did the unthinkable: It killed him off. The decision turned out to be the company’s most successful social media play ever—and likely one of the widest-reaching social campaigns of all time, by any brand.  Duo was originally created as logo in 2011, the year that Duolingo was founded. In the years since,...