In honor of the time-honored April Fools’ Day, an annual formal occasion for punking and pranking each other since the mid 1500s, we look back at how America’s fun-loving companies have used leg-pulling as a springtime marketing tool.
Google has long been a bastion of creative gags and practical jokes at the expense of its unwilling customer base. Over the years, Googlers have gone to town with spoofs like its “Google’s Gmail Blue” in 2013. This supposed new product turned Gmail blue in an effort to answer the eternal question at the Googleplex: “How do we completely redesign something,” a guy asks in an April Fools’ Day video, “while keeping it exactly the same? The answer is Gmail Blue.”
How about offering your customers flights to Mars? That’s was travel-site Expedia’s response to the April-first challenge. The Bellevue, Washington-based company back in 2009 faked out quite a few people who were convinced the offer was real. They even produced slick marketing graphics, with tickets starting as low as $99, though we’re not sure if that was one-way or round-trip.
So far,my favourite April fool is the flight to Mars from Expedia! They even put activities and hotels descriptions! http://is.gd/q5nB
— Gina Desjardins (@ginades) April 1, 2009
Let’s also give a shout-out to Sony, a company that has enjoyed a long multi-year run of pulling off pranks. In the past, Sony has put on elaborate press events to release products but without actually releasing any at all.
A few years back, Rdio Internet radio unveiled a listening service targeted to cats. They called it – what else? – Rdio-Meowz. Rdio even fooled people into thinking they were partnering with online pet superstars including Grumpy Cat, Lil Bub and Piano Cat.
Over at the online April Fool Archive (yes, that’s really a thing), Virgin has earned its props, year after year, with delectable April Fools’ Day fare. Its 1989 offering was a classic: Here’s the archive’s description: “On March 31, British policemen were sent to investigate a glowing flying saucer that had settled down in a field in Surrey. As the policemen approached the craft with their truncheons held out, a door opened in the bottom of the ship and a small figure wearing a silver space suit walked out. The policemen immediately took off in the opposite direction. The alien turned out to be a midget, and the flying saucer was a hot air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin Records.
“Branson had taken off in the balloon the day before, planning to land in London’s Hyde Park on April 1. However, a wind change had blown him down a day early in the Surrey field. The police had received a flood of phone calls from scared motorists using roadside emergency phones as the balloon passed over the highway. One lady reportedly called a radio station to describe the UFO that she was looking at, not realizing that she was standing in front of her window stark naked. One of the policemen who had to approach the craft later admitted, ‘”I have never been so scared in 20 years of being a policeman.”‘
Back in 2009, YouTube faked everyone out when it flipped its videos upside-down. “The effect displayed for visitors who opened the home page and then went to a video from there,” according to the archives. “It was also possible to activate the effect by adding the code &flip=1to the end of a youtube URL.” YouTube told viewers that it had introduced the new format because “our internal tests have shown that modern computer monitors give a higher quality picture when flipped upside down—kind of like how it’s best to rotate your mattress every six months.” To see the new format, said the site, it “advised viewers to either 1) Turn your monitor upside-down; 2) Tilt your head to the side; or 3) Move to Australia.”
A couple of years ago, Wrike, a privately held service provider based in Mountain View, took what was then a retro look at April Fools’ Day, putting together a (fake) campaign where they announced they would be sending out a million CD-ROMs with a free trial of their software, kind of like AOL used to do, waaaaayyy back in the day.
Yamaha also got into the action with its “MusicCast TRACK 8” which “is built with precision and the latest technology to literally breathe new life into your favorite cartridges.” So how does it work? Check it out:
“SHAKE AND BLOW: An internal suspension system gyrates the cartridge and blasts air on the tape, mimicking the classic shake-and-blow troubleshooting technique of the past.”
It was in 2017 that Amazon released its latest, and most prank-worthy, product: ‘Petlexa’ – a speaker for dogs, cats and other pets. “The Petlexa feature allows dogs, cats, and other animals to communicate with Alexa just like you do,” Amazon said. “The Petlexa feature gives pets the freedom to place orders from Amazon, and to activate smart home enabled toys.” Knowing Amazon and its envelope-pushing pedigree, this one seemed downright real at the time!
Here’s another look back at pranks from yesterday, consider this item reported by the Seattle Times: “On April 1, 1957, the BBC TV show ‘Panorama’ ran a segment about the Swiss spaghetti harvest enjoying a ‘bumper year’ thanks to mild weather and the elimination of a pest called the ‘spaghetti weevil.’ Many credulous Britons were taken in, and why not? The story was on television — then a relatively new invention.”
Finally, we have New Jersey-based boutique dairy maker Muuna serving up – are you ready for this? – cannabis cottage cheese!
“Satisfy the munchies with a new take on the trending plant-forward diet,” says the company’s press release. “Muuna, an award-winning cottage cheese brand, fully embraces the plant-forward dairy trend by introducing its newest flavor, Muuna Cannabis Cottage Cheese. This new limited-edition variety, using milk from grass-fed cows, is available in Muuna’s distinct snack-sized, single-serve cup starting today.”
Known for pioneering adventurous flavors, and even building a so-called ergonomically-designed single-serve container, Muuna calls its new cannabis flavor “uniquely creamy” and “melt-in-your-mouth” yummy, containing “a sprinkle of food-grade cannabis on the bottom, creating an element of carefree relaxation while delivering a delightfully earthy taste.”
Muuna is also just kidding around.
“This partially non-factual press release is issued by Muuna Cottage Cheese,” reads the last line of the press release, “and is an acknowledged spoof press release for April Fool’s Day.”