April Fool’s Day campaign round-up

The Good, Better and just plain Foolish. Welcome to our round-up of some of this year’s April Fool’s Day stories, as rated by our Creative Director, Mike Chivers

Let’s get into it.

#AprilFools #Good | Tinder Fish Free 7/10

Tinder adopted a classic PR 101 methodology, creating a brand ‘act’ from interpreting how some people felt when using their app. They announced their app would become fish-free within 24 hours after finding 92% of singles got the ‘ick’ after coming across a potential match’s ‘fish pic’.

Of course, the act and the research were fake, but we’re not so sure that the dating profile they used as an asset to launch was; the seemingly charming fisherman with his catch of the day!

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#AprilFools #Better | Marmite Patches 10/10

Love or Hate it you cannot argue that this is genius. Marmite created patches to help struggling #Lovers (of which I’m one) to get their cravings under control.

They launched through ‘creator’ content that showed the patches being worn in potential high crave situations; a wedding, a 5hr flight, a holiday and finally a business meeting.

The reveal, an in-feed post to say the patches wouldn’t be available after the 1st April, and to claim they’ve been fooling the nation since 1902.

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A post shared by Marmite (@marmite)

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A post shared by Marmite (@marmite)

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A post shared by Marmite (@marmite)

#AprilFools #Better | Stella McCartney, Change The History 9/10

Stella’s PR team pulled no gimmicks for their April Fool’s Day post. They used it as a moment to reaffirm their USP super clearly.

In a post that accompanied a simple two image carousel of the Frame Mini, they claimed to have surrendered to 22 years of industry pressure and will make a bag from animal leather.

Scrolling down, they pulled the quickest 180, claimed April Fool’s to reveal that they will never use leather, feathers, fur or skins. Ever.

Simple and smart.

#AprilFools #Foolish | IKEA FRAKTA SKAMT 4/10

Haven’t we seen this before? Does this feel a little like three years ago?

Following the Balenciaga ‘copy’ of the big blue Frakta bag, we had a surge of people getting crafty with the stiff blue and yellow material, using it to make garments and accessories.

We’re all here nostalgia, and appreciate the crafty assets, but…

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A post shared by IKEA UK (@ikeauk)

#AprilFools #Foolish

Strongbow Builder’s Tea Flavour

3/10

A tired and tested April Fool’s hack; claim NPD by combining two flavours that shouldn’t go together and that no-one expected (or wanted!).

Strongbow relied too heavily on predicted reactions to an odd flavour pairing and a simple mock-up for success.

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Looking to bring some creativity into your upcoming campaigns? Why not speak to our Creative Director to find out how we could help deliver this for you.

Get in touch with the team