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 team to find out how we could help deliver this for you.

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