Every year, countless brands roll out elaborate ‘brand awareness’ pranks on April 1st, launching fake products or campaigns that are so hilariously off-point that consumers can’t seem to get enough. For us, there is nothing better on April Fools’ Day than a brand prank delivered well. So, without further ado, we give you our shortlist of this year’s most ridiculous April Fools’ Day brand hoaxes.
Scope Bacon Mouthwash
Yes. You read it right. Last week, oral hygiene giant Scope released a faux web commercial and mini-site for a new bacon flavoured mouthwash — Scope Bacon. The hoax spawned a huge amount of overwhelmingly positive social media interaction, with YouTube comments like “seriously? that exists?” and “Scope. There is a thin line between a joke, and a cruel lie. WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”
Google Nose
Google really made a splash this year with a whole slew of hoax campaigns. But there was one clear winner. Piggybacking on the buzz garnered by Google Glass, Google decided to unveil its newest technology — Google Nose — to the masses, headed by the world-expanding rallying cry “Smelling is believing”.
Snickers Snickettes
In the realm of junk food, Snickers introduced their latest nugget of brand marketing gold — Snickettes. Leveraging various social media, this gem sparked a whole lot of user interaction on Facebook, and paved the way for a corporate announcement that a real new product is on the way. Could be quite a choco-haul for fans of the brand.
Twitter hit the web this week with a stone-faced ruse, introducing a new two-tiered model in which users can opt to pay a monthly fee to use Twitter, or else continue using their newly levelled-down free product, Twttr, which restricts non-paying users to consonants only. If you ask us, this one was just wndrfl.
HootSuite HootFoil
Staying within the Twitterverse, HootSuite made Canadian brand-prankers proud with its introduction of a new, high-tech security product, impenetrable by even the most nefarious hackers and revolutionary in its simplicity…
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