April Fools happened four days ago, and we’re still in awe at how creative and funny some of the company pranks turned out.
Everyone on social media loves a great prank video or article, but other than laughs, what does a company gain by investing time, and sometimes big money, into these elaborate pranks?
To show exactly what we mean, we put together a few of our favourite Brand April Fools Jokes:
On Facebook, Spartan Race’s joke accumulated 117 likes, 38 comments, and 59 shares. The other posts on their profile only usually get a few likes and comments in comparison. On YouTube, Google’s prank brought in 3,141,852 views. And YouTube, using YouTube (duh), has received an incredible 28,712,860 views so far.
These practical jokes have driven huge amounts of traffic to their websites and featured content. Even if they are pranks and the products are obviously fake, we still stick around to learn more about the company itself and we now trust the brand a little bit more because it was able to make us laugh. Spartan Race even geniously used their prank to offer a promo code to 2016 Spartan Racers. And YouTube and Google both gained what they primarily seek on a daily basis: views and exposure.
Companies use April Fools with hopes that people will appeal to their humorous side, and their human side.
In fact, we would argue that watching these April Fools videos is a breath of fresh air. It’s so easy to get caught up in the struggles of everyday life, and to hold a company in bad light because of questionable corperate actions. April Fools offers a bridge, a connection, between the average person and the distant corporation. Not only do these public jokes allow corporations to reach larger audiences, but they also make corporations easier for us, the people, to reach and relate to. As humans, we naturally react positively towards content containing humour, no matter how unrealistic it is. We can all appreciate it because we can all relate. That is what marketing is all about; finding common ground with a person. Hopefully this then translates into a long term business to consumer relationship. If there is one thing to take away from April Fools day is not to be afraid to use some humour in your marketing efforts. People understand ‘the funny’.
So to those awesome companies that go out of their way to make the world laugh: thanks from ROI.
We also posted a video of a small prank that we pulled in our own office on Facebook to, so you should check that out 🙂 Give us a message if you like these pranks, or tell us about one you pulled!
