At Your Marketing Team, we know that days of interest are a marketeer’s best friend. They’re a great way to connect with audiences, craft engaging campaigns, display your knowledge of current trends and emote the personality behind your brand. Though most of these days consist of traditional messaging and using awareness days to build rapport with customers, April Fools Day calls for the quirkiest of campaign ideas, silliness and above all else, engaging your audience through tomfoolery.
In this blog, we will be looking at some of the most imaginative and innovative campaigns produced and how they became to be considered as one of the better April Fool’s initiatives.
KNOWING YOUR CUSTOMERS AND CURRENT TRENDS
One of the best ways to ensure your April Fool’s campaign hits the mark is to truly understand what will make your customers stop and notice the campaign and what will spark conversation. If you hit that nail on the head then your initiative might just go down in the history books like the ones below.
McDonalds
Back in 2016, everyone became guilty of dipping one of their McDonalds fries into their milkshake just to partake in the infamous fry-dipping trend. McDonalds’s awareness and swift reaction to this trend amongst their customer base was super effective. Not only did they use the trend to promote their brand on socials, but in 2019, McDonalds announced they would be releasing new sauce pots inspired by their signature McDonalds milkshake flavours: banana, strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. The campaign was successful and innovative and left many customers discussing the announcement with excitement (and sometimes disgust) on multiple social channels. Those who had tried the trend spoke to friends about it and those who hadn’t were compelled to try it because of the campaign. With over 2 million post clicks, it’s clear that whichever side of the fence you were on, and the campaign made a lasting impression.
Walkers Sandwich Crisps
Back in 2022, the viral campaign by Walkers asked the nation if you were #CrispIN or #CrispOUT. The campaign gained traction around the UK with many on social media joining in the trend and famous faces appearing on all of our screens to share their opinion and ask us if we were #CrispIN or #CrispOUT? After a study completed by Walkers stated 98% of responses agreed that crisps and bread are a winning combination, for April Fools, Walkers teased fans with the introduction of new giant bread shaped crisps perfect to tuck into your sandwich or to have a big nibble on as a snack after your sandwich. This campaign is a perfect example of how knowing customers wants and researching responses to your previous campaigns can cause future initiatives to excel.
CONSISTENT BRAND JOURNEY THORUGH DESIGN AND DETAILS
Another way to ensure the success of your businesses April Fool’s campaign is through capturing your customers attention and creating a consistent brand journey. If the slightest thing about your campaign is off, then customers may realise the campaign is a fake and then all your hard work to design an original concept will be wasted. You need to ensure the campaign is believable, even if it is only until noon. Here are some examples that show that attention to detail and sticking to brand guidelines, even with a made up product, can result in successful campaigns.
Mothercare
Mothercare released an email campaign in 2019 advertising a product called ‘Home Baby Assistant’ - which was dubbed as the world’s first baby translator. The attention to detail with realistic artwork, the inclusion of a release date, a 5* review from a magazine and a pre-order link meant this campaign had us all fooled!
Duolingo
Duolingo is no stranger to tricking its customers and with it’s April Fool’s campaigns, they always go above and beyond. Firstly in 2021, they opted to pretend to release ‘duolingo roll’ which was toilet paper that teaches you phrases from new languages. It was designed for English, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and Chinese speakers. With a separate landing page, different branding for each roll, production and scientific information about the product, the list goes on and on about how duolingo made this campaign seem so real. They even went as far as to include a number of testimonials, some even having a negative opinion on the product. The determination to make the customers follow this brand journey is astounding and it’s certainly not the last time duolingo will be able to pull this off.
Roll on 2023, where Duolingo went as far as to partner with US company Peacock to produce a trailer for a fake dating show where no one could speak the same language. They went as far to create a storyline to the show, create a minute and a half trailer and use famous faces throughout. They finished off the campaign with the offer of users receiving one month of free access to Super Duolingo and 50% off three months of Peacock Premium. Once again, the precision and thought that went into the campaign made it one of the most memorable initiatives from last year and made duolingo one on our lists to never believe on April 1st again!
TRULY OUTRAGEOUS PRODUCTS
Some brands simply try to attract customers by making them stop and think ‘WHAT?’. Instead of spending time trying to perfect a landing page or researching clientele responses to previous campaigns, some brands just let their minds run wild and think of the most bizarre ingredient they can put in their product and think ‘Yeah, that works’. And it does!
Heinz x Innocent
An unlikely partnership, but expect the unexpected on April Fool’s Day! In 2021, Heinz and Innocent came together and created ‘SMOUP’, a combination of Heinz’s Cream of Tomato Soup and Innocent’s classic strawberry and banana smoothie. The partnership definitely got tongues wagging but we hope it’s not enough excitement to actually try it!
Maryland Cookies
In 2019, Maryland Cookies took a similar approach, combining their sweet cookies with avocado. The partnering of these flavours was just about believable, but still made individuals express their distain and confusion about the product with those around them.
REBRANDING
Other approaches to April Fools marketing campaigns take shape through a temporary rebrand. This change in branding can be subtle to get customers questioning whether it’s always been like that, or it can be an obvious change like Ant & Dec’s 1st April announcement that caused a national meltdown.
Ant and Dec
Another rebranding example was undertaken by the nation’s favourite duo, Ant & Dec. In 2021, the famous pair sent the UK spiralling after announcing that they would be changing their name to ‘Dec & Ant’. They went as far as to release statements and change the Saturday Night Takeaway logo, adding to the chaos caused. This approach to rebranding was not only hilarious but very effective with over 29,000 likes on X.
Volkswagen
One of the most notable April Fool’s rebranding campaigns came from Volkswagen, but not for the right reasons. Volkswagen came under fire back in 2021 after releasing their ‘new’ name ‘Voltswagen’ prematurely to April Fool’s day and the prank was therefore seen as lying to the public and regulators. The phony rebrand was in order to promote its new electric vehicle and although the rebrand was clever, if you want to take this approach to April Fool’s ensure you don’t release the “rebrand” too early to avoid confusion and your initiative being remembered for the wrong reasons.
INTERACTIVE CAMPAIGNS
Some brands take a backseat when it comes to temporary rebranding or inventing a phony product just for the day. Below are some great campaign examples of initiatives that use this day of foolishness to create interaction between the customer and the brand.
In 2018, Google launched a campaign in collaboration with Where’s Waldo. You had to use Google services like Google maps, Google chrome or Google assistant to partake in the campaign. It was a fabulous campaign to which the whole family could get involved as well as benefitting the brand as it encouraged participants to share screenshots online once Waldo and his friends had been found using a personalised hashtag.
Mondelez
Mondelez’s Sour Patch Kids marketing campaigns love to be centred around mischief meaning April Fool’s Day calls for the brand to go big or go home, and they did just that in 2021! The company used social media channel TikTok to encourage youngsters to pull pranks on others with $1,000 being rewarded to 25 lucky participants. Contributors had to follow the brands TikTok account and include a branded hashtag with famous faces being recruited to boost the campaign. After COVID and thanks to the mischievous reputation the Sour Patch Kids have built up, the initiative was a great way to celebrate April Fool’s!
GIVING THE CONSUMERS WHAT THEY WANT TO TAKE IT AWAY TO LEAVE THEM TALKING
The last method to grab your audience’s attention is offering a product, not a new phony one like avocado cookies, but one you know your customers REALLY want just to take it away. It might come across as a little harsh, but has proven to be very effective as customers will never stop talking about that time you got their hopes up just to crush them (I would know as some similar April Fool’s campaigns still haunt me to this day).
Wingstop
One campaign that follows this style that I’m sure hurts some of you as much as it does me is Wingstop’s 2023 April Fools campaign. Wingstop is a US brand that is only 6 years old in the UK and has already become a staple in the fast-food market due to their delicious flavours and condiments with everyone loving their ranch. I think it’s fair to say that when Wingstop announced that it would be beginning to sell ranch in a bottle, fans were pretty pleased! But when people began to realise what day this tease of a new product was posted on, fans were not so pleased. I think it’s safe to say that these types of campaigns can be a little risky but lucky for Wingstop, the campaign just made the demand for ranch in a bottle to double.
Kingfisher Instant Beer
Another campaign to follow suit, is Kingfisher’s announcement of Instant beer in 2020. They made the announcement through a 3 minute YouTube video featuring scientific explanations, customer reviews and a landing page making the taunting campaign seem very believable to customers. The mischievous video set the digital world alight with over half a million views in 48 hours and 70,000 shares of individuals anticipating the products release only to realise it was a smart fake campaign for April Fools.
Whatever style of April Fool’s campaign a brand adapts, the campaigns are a fun way to demonstrate how they know their customers and current trends and allow their marketing department’s imaginations to run wild in developing an initiative that will guarantee to get their customers talking.
It can be difficult for smaller brands to make an impact on April Fools Day. These big names have access to agencies, lawyers and a breadth of customers to conduct market research with, throughout the planning stage to ensure the campaign goes off without a hitch. If you’re a small business you may not have the luxury of these resources, so we would always advise testing the stunt or running the idea past a professional marketing professional to ensure the performs desirably and doesn’t backfire!