April Fool’s Day is a great excuse for brands to have a little fun online, whether it’s eyebrow-raising product announcements, surprising partnerships or something completely ridiculous.
At ICAAL, we always keep a close eye on what other companies are doing online. There are some campaigns that have impressed us, and undoubtedly a fair few that have left a lot to be desired. We’ve put together a few of our favourites, as well as a few failures, to celebrate this increasing digital trend on April Fool’s Day.
An Unexpected Collaboration
Sometimes, the trick to a good April Fool’s joke is creating something so believable that people can’t help but fall for it. Other times, you can come up with an idea so crazy it’s completely unbelievable… although admittedly, it could then be a double bluff. It’s all very confusing.
In 2016, a parody website was launched to show off a collaboration between Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and fashion retainer H&M. The site advertised an exclusive collection of grey T-shirts and jeans to emulate Zuckerberg’s distinctive, simple style.
The website is still around (MarkforHM.com), though now you’ll find the domain purchased by an online steroid seller(!), so sadly the actual collab site is lost. For anyone interested, the web address likely got lots of links from news articles, building its backlink profile and creating a valuable domain for ‘Just Pump It’ to swoop in and purchase.
From Tricks To Turnover
Tiffany & Co., the premium jewellery brand, decided to get in on the April Fool’s action back in 2022. Jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon, they announced the launch of ‘TiffCoin’, advertising exclusive events, products and NFTs for coin holders.
As you can imagine, not many people fell for it, and Tiffany & Co. quickly revealed their trick to their followers on social media almost as quickly as they unveiled the fake product itself. However, the launch of ‘TiffCoin’ was just the beginning of their clever marketing plan.
Tiffany & Co. followed up their April Fool’s message with a very real product launch – a limited edition 18K gold coin, available for 24 hours only. This stands out as one of the classier campaigns on our list and one of the most profitable. This one got more than just online chatter and turned a joke into a profit. Who’s laughing now?
Mic Drop
No, that’s not our way of ending the article – not quite yet. In 2016, Google played with fire and messed with Gmail settings. Who could guess this wouldn’t go to plan?
With thousands of companies (ourselves included) using Gmail day-to-day to send very important emails to very important people, it’s probably not a platform to be meddled with. But hey, it’s Google – they can do what they like, apparently.
On 1st April 2016, Gmail gained an extra button right next to ‘SEND’. When clicked, your email was sent – along with a gif of a Minion dropping a microphone. This meant that a diminutive, mic-dropping, yellow-bodied, goggle-wearing whatever-they’re-meant-to-be was unintentionally signing off corporate emails, job applications, family news and who knows what else to thousands of unsuspecting recipients the world over. A bit despicable, really.
The Best (or Worst) of the Rest
The best digital marketing campaigns are so good, they can feel like you’re printing your own money. In 2018, PayPal teased us with the idea of making this a reality, fooling customers into thinking they could print cash directly from their phones.
Another one from Google – in 2019, with their tongues firmly in their cheeks, they announced their Screen Cleaner functionality. This app would detect when your smartphone is getting grubby and clean it for you.
April Fool’s Day jokes are all about getting customers to smile, which is something Burger King took quite literally with their ‘Whopper Toothpaste’ back in 2017. This was a clever campaign with a fun idea that was certainly fresher than the product itself would have been.
In 2021, Volkswagen put forward a potential rebrand to ‘Voltswagen’ to show their commitment to electric vehicles. Despite the good intentions and positive chatter, the brand missed the mark by – bizarrely – putting out their April Fool’s joke not on April Fool’s Day. This hardly generated the buzz they wanted, not helped by their shockingly mistimed execution.
Creative Digital Marketing, Every Day
Don’t wait for April Fool’s Day to get people talking about your brand. At ICAAL, we’re specialists in creating digital campaigns that raise awareness of your company and turn talk into traffic and leads.
The best April Fool’s campaigns combine clever copy with eye-catching graphics and creative web design – all elements that we at ICAAL are masters of in-house. Talk to us today about our creative digital marketing campaigns, and how we can help you grow your business.
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