Sunday was the one day of the year that you can’t take anything you see or hear seriously – at least until 12pm. Yet every year we still manage to get caught out by some brands who clearly have far too much time on their hands and come up with amazing campaigns. Yeah, we’re only jealous.
We’ll be the first ones to admit that we’ve been caught out a few times and if you haven’t woken up early on April 1st and fallen for something on your timeline while bleary-eyed… then you’re clearly better morning people than we are.
In celebration of one the most fun days ever, we’re taking a look at three of the best April Fool’s Day campaigns from the past few years which really were ingenious – and hilarious.
April Fool’s Day Campaign: Google Nose
In 2013, search engine Google – you may have heard of them – decided to tease users into thinking that there would be a new addition to their search engine capabilities. An all new smell-based function.
Ever wondered if a durian really smells as gross as people say it does? A quick search with Google Nose would be able to tell you. Want to taunt yourself with the smell of your favourite dish when you’re stuck in a work meeting and super hungry? Google Nose can help with that.
Google claimed they had sent out street sense vehicles to collect air samples of many different smells to create a cohesive database which is ready to produce any smell at your command.
As marketers, we’re pretty glad this was a hoax… could you imagine performing SEO on the smell of blueberry cheesecake?
April Fool’s Day Campaign: H&M’s Mark Zuckerberg Collection
Want to wake up and not have anything to worry about or make anything clothing-based decisions like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg?
Well, back in 2016, H&M realised that Mark’s mantra of “I really want to clear my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community” would make the perfect influence for a new range of clothes.
Offering a “collection pack”, the brand showcased a new range of clothes which consisted of seven basic grey t-shirts and a pair of basic jeans to mimic the Facebook founder’s simplistic sense of style, promising that the wearers would “feel more focused” and came complete with an online lookbook to show how the new fashion trend could be styled.
Check out Mark Zuckerberg x H&M here.
April Fool’s Day Campaign: Deliveroo Telepathic Ordering
We’re not going to lie, this is probably one of our favourite hoaxes of the past couple of years, mainly because we’re an office of foodies and anything that makes the ordering service even easier is a plus in our eyes.
For those who always have “food on the mind”, delivery app Deliveroo released news that they were in talks with neuroscientists to make hands-free food ordering a reality. The service was intended to help remove the physical aspect of ordering food and allow orderers to go about their daily lives in a smoother fashion.
It also promised to detect what users were craving, even if they didn’t know that they were wanting that particular food themselves.
We’re going to be pretty mad if this isn’t actually a thing in the future, but it has to be one of our ultimate favourite campaigns!
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