April Fools is one of our favorite holidays in the marketing world, and this year we were excited to see its return for brands across industries. It’s a great opportunity to go viral, activate your community, and break through a frequently noisy social media climate. We rounded up some of the social media posts that (almost) got us this year.
WINNER: El Arroyo & YETI
El Arroyo posted early in the day about their beloved sign being stolen, leading to multiple local Austin brands reposting, spreading the word about the stolen sign…only for it to appear hours later at the YETI flagship store, where free margaritas were given away in special El Arroyo tumblers! A great example of brand partnership for a fun, local-flavored activation, and a successful one—tumblers were gone in under 45 minutes!
Honorable Mention
Farmer’s Dog Poop Scented Candle
This one was too funny not to mention — it had us laugh-reacting in our company Slack channel. We loved seeing the creative design they came up with and the smart landing page that almost allowed users to add candles to cart, but instead drove to a value proposition for their dog food subscription service. A great example of using April Fools to garner attention with the end results of increased sales.
Duolingo Toilet Roll
Duolingo chose to go big or go home, with a full-fledged social and web strategy, including a landing page specially made for a Duolingo toilet roll. We loved their witty messaging across social and the landing page, the latter of which drove users to sign up for language courses on their app. It also drove increased attention to the app ahead of the launch of a new language course for Yiddish.
Bandit Coffee Shrimp Cinnamon Toast Crunch Ice Cream
Utilizing the recent viral sensation Shrimp Cinnamon Toast Crunch controversy from a few weeks ago, new local Austin coffee shop Bandit (nearly) knocked this one out of the park — if they hadn’t given it away in the caption! Props to their graphic design team for an eye-catching visual representation of something we never expected to see.
Camp Olympia switching colors
Honorable mention for our client, Camp Olympia, who claimed to switch their classic tribe colors (a 50+ year tradition) for this year’s camp, giving some campers quite the shock! We loved watching the comments section explode with reactions from Camp Olympia’s loyal and engaged community.
What were your favorite brand April Fools jokes? We’d love to hear about them. And if you’re looking for a marketing team as creative as these ones, Workhorse is ready to jump in (no joke) – shout at us here.
