How many of you have ever been fooled by a brand on April First?! April Fool’s Day can be a brilliant opportunity for many brands to make a big impact, generate engagement and build brand awareness. Obviously, the end goal is to create a memorable campaign that consumers will remember and talk about. But it’s not only just about results! It’s also a great way to inject some fun and humour into your marketing.
So if you need some inspiration for April Fool’s Day marketing, keep reading to find out what our Leeds Agency’s top 5 April Fool’s Day campaigns are.
1. Amazon – Petlexa
With the introduction of voice search technology and smart speakers back in 2014, Amazon came up with an ingenious way to boost awareness and sales of their Amazon Alexa product. Their April Fool’s Day campaign centred around a new ‘Petlexa’ feature on all their Alexa smart speakers. The new update would allow household pets to communicate and talk to Alexa just like humans do, and even order their pet food! It would make pet owners’ lives around the world much easier if it were true, but regardless, the campaign highlighted all the right product features of Alexa and was extremely timely.
You can watch the full Petlexa video here
2. Travelodge Australia – Whiff and Wake
Since we’re experts in hotel marketing, it seems only fair that we include our favourite April Fool’s Day campaign from a hospitality brand. Travelodge pretended to create a new ‘Whiff and Wake’ service which would see that guests woke up to the smell of frying bacon being wafted into the room to help get them out of bed. This is a very clever concept, as it was in response to customers saying they often had trouble sleeping in and snoozing their alarm clocks. Sounds like the perfect way to wake up if you ask us! Now if only it was true…
Read the full article here.
Photo credit: Karryon/Travelodge Australia
3. Heinz Creme – Egg Mayo
This is one of our favourite April Fool’s campaigns and in this instance, it wasn’t even a hoax! On April 1st 2019, Heinz released a photo of their new creation – Creme Egg Mayonnaise. It would be a fair assumption for people to make that this was an April Fool’s Day joke. However, the following day they confirmed that this was real and people could sample it from a pop-up shop in London. The result? Press mentions and articles from some of the top publications around the UK and customers flocking to the pop-up shop. We think it’s one of the best April Fool’s marketing and PR stunts to date!
You can read more about the campaign here.
4. McDonald’s – Milkshake Sauce Pots
Whether you’d dip your french fries in a milkshake or not, there’s no denying that this campaign got people talking and divided the nation. Having seen customers post on social media about how much they loved dipping their french fries in milkshakes, McDonald’s came up with their milkshake sauce pot prank. It was a brilliant campaign that generated tonnes of interaction on social media and boosted their overall brand presence.
View the original tweet here.
Photo credit: Caples
5. Tinder – Height Verification
Back in 2019, Tinder played a prank on its users that the app was launching a brand new height verification feature. It was ‘created’ due to users lying about their height when using the app. While this was a humorous and fun campaign, it also sent an important message – to be who you say you are online. It got people talking on social media and sparked lots of conversations about users’ experiences using Tinder. We’d say that’s a success!
View the original tweet here.
Photo credit: Tinder/Shorty Awards
What are the best April Fool’s Day promotion tips?
We have experience in creating fun and quirky April Fool’s Day marketing campaigns for clients across a range of different sectors. Imogen, Marketing Executive at our creative agency, shares her top tips for nailing your April Fool’s promotion:
“The most important thing to remember when planning your April Fool’s Day campaign is to always keep the target audience front of mind. Knowing them and what they’d find humorous is key, otherwise, your campaign might flop. Listen to what customers are saying about the brand and product, and decide on a promotion that’s going to be relatable and funny. If you can, make it timely to tie in with current trends too. This will help to spark a conversation and make people talk about your brand.”
If you’d like to learn more about how we could help to create your perfect marketing campaign, get in touch with our Leeds-based creative agency today.