April Fools’ Marketing and How to Use It

April Fools’ Day is the one day a year where it’s socially acceptable to glue quarters to sidewalks or replace the Oreo cream filling with toothpaste, providing some lighthearted enjoyment all around. It’s also a great marketing tool for companies and a perfect way to have a little fun on the job. In fact, some corporations are actually the most devious pranksters of all.

This year, we here at Marstudio had a little fun with Internet memes. Our joke came from playing off a popular meme amongst graphic designers, aptly named “Graphic Design is My Passion.” If you haven’t seen the original yet, check it out here.

The joke rests on the idea that we call ourselves graphic designers, but created an image using Clipart, Comic Sans font, and an irrelevant background. In the spirit of that sarcasm, we also created another meme, this time calling it an “informative graphic”

To top it all off, we “recreated our logo” using the sentiment of the joke, ending up with this image:

These jokes were popular amongst graphic designers, who not only understood the industry humor but were familiar with the memes to begin with. When creating an April Fool’s Day prank, there are two critical factors: 1) don’t take yourself too seriously and 2) remember the audience you’re playing to. In 2017, Amazon did this brilliantly with its Amazon “Petlexa” ad. The joke was based on the idea that people knew what their Amazon “Alexa” was, as the company parodied its own idea. “Petlexa” was a speaker for pets, allowing household animals to communicate with their Alexa just as humans do. This meant that the pets could order from Amazon, activate smart devices, and play the music of their choosing. They created a spoof video to accompany their post:

Similarly, in 2017, Marstudio made a spoof video of our own, marketing our “MARS EYE NO.” In this joke, we played off the idea that people request our services with the popular phrase: “I need it, like, yesterday.”

April Fools’ jokes should be fun and lighthearted, never stepping over the line between “funny” and “malicious.” If you find yourself asking: “Can my company participate?” the answer is usually yes. With any kind of humorous marketing, it just depends on what kind of company you run. For example, it’s probably not the greatest idea for a charity organization to post April Fools’ jokes poking fun at their own work. It’s really a case by case scenario.

Big or small, companies of all sorts can join in on a little fun self-ribbing to bring a smile to someone’s face. In fact, companies have been making these jokes for ages. These jokes are a great way to humanize your company to potential clients or employees. In addition, they often result in higher social media exposure like when Burger King unveiled their “Chocolate Whopper” in 2018. If you check your social media feeds today, people are probably raving over their favorite company’s latest April Fools’ prank that had them rolling on the floor laughing. In short, company-wide April Fools’ Day pranks are fun to make, a joy to experience, and a strategic marketing tool.

Do you want to create something like this too? Marstudio can help. Call us today to set up a consultation to discuss potential fun marketing ideas.