April Fools’ Fun: 3 Fantastic Brand Responses From Years Past

By Brian Ackermann

There’s arguably no better day than April Fools’ Day for advertising and public relations geniuses to flex their creative muscles. In fact, it’s almost expected. It’s like the Super Bowl of social media, except it doesn’t take a big budget to be relevant and amusing on April Fools’ Day.

To celebrate, we’ve created a roundup of some of our favorite brand responses from the past several years. Check back on Monday, April 3, for our favorite brand responses from this year.

Pizza Hut –The Pepperoni Pilsner

Given the obsession with combining bacon with almost everything, it wasn’t too hard to believe that Pizza Hut could create and market a pepperoni-flavored beer. However, what really put this campaign over the top was the lack of sarcasm. This video looks and feels like a real commercial, while remaining an obvious joke.

National Geographic – Animal Photos

Anything with puppies has the potential to go viral. When you add cute clothes to puppies, there’s no way it won’t. Last year, National Geographic announced that it would no longer photograph nude animals. The result was a series of adorable animals in people clothes with clever one-liners. Enough said.

BMW – Are You Driving a Genuine BMW?

Going back a few years to 1987, BMW ran an ad in the London Times claiming that fake BMWs were being sold in the UK. To test the realness of their cars, BMW told owners to sit in the cars, start their engines and shout, ‘Esel. Du bist ‘reingefallen.’ The German translation = “You Ass! You fell for it!” While dated, it’s still clever.

Check back on Monday to see some of our favorite brand responses from this year’s holiday. Tell us your favorite brand response to April Fools’ Day in the comments or Tweet @PRSAPgh.

Brian Ackermann is an account coordinator at Havas PR US and social media coordinator for PRSA Pittsburgh. 

Sources: 

YouTube

National Geographic

Hoaxes.org