This year, April Fools’ Day saw many global brands create some entertaining pranks. In case you missed them, here are The Practice team’s favourites! 

One of the best was definitely from The Oxford Dictionary, who pranked everyone with some hilarious new additions. Amongst these were the verb “Leo”- “to achieve something after years of trying”, and “social fleedia”, defined as “a situation in which one or more social media users choose to close their accounts.” It was great to see that even an institution such as The Oxford Dictionary could display its humorous side. Another word-based prank was created by O2, who decided to send its 2.8 million customers text message updates which appeared upside down. The first message stated: “Research shows more and more of you are checking your phones upside down. So from now on, every one of our messages can be read your way up. Very handy, we hope you agree.” This was definitely an effective joke, prompting us to actually read the message, and perhaps we might now be more receptive to further updates from our network providers!

O2 “Upside down” messages

H&M were on point with their prank, in which they unveiled a new collection, inspired by Mark Zuckerberg. The line itself featured a special “Collection pack”, brilliantly comprising seven grey t-shirts and one pair of jeans! Zuckerberg himself was also in on the ploy, saying of the collaboration: “I really want to clear my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how best to serve this community.”

Mark Zuckerberg x H&M

Other brands were eager to prank customers with fun new products, including honey company Rowse, who amused fans with a new version made from wasps. The company revealed that it had decided to invite a swarm of 10,000 Mexican wasps to takeover production for the next ten weeks, giving its usual bees a little break. Rowse also went onto state that the wasps would be made to feel comfortable, with UV lamps, heaters, and a sound system playing Latin American music!

Rowse “Wasp” honey

We also loved this April Fools video, created by toilet paper brand, Quilted Northern. In it, the company announced its new “rustic weave” toilet paper line, featuring rolls crafted in their raw form, directly from the tree. Products include those made from various tree-types including extra virgin birch and cedar loom, with the brand director stating: “We expect this product to fill a large white space in the toilet tissue category.”

As usual, Google pulled out all the stops, with pranks arising from all of its products. However, its Gmail joke went slightly awry this year, resulting in an outcry of angry users. The tech giant decided to add a “Mic Drop” button to the service, which enabled users to include a GIF of Despicable Me’s minion character dropping a microphone in their emails. However, Google later aborted the prank after public backlash, with users finding it all too easy to hit this button, causing many inappropriate emails to be sent. Social media erupted, with angry posts and tweets revealing how the joke had caused disruption at work, with one user even reporting that it resulted in him losing his job. Problems aside, Google’s other April Fools pranks were successful. Google Express for instance, revealed a specially created video to announce the launch of “parachutes”, a new delivery service, while Google Japan announced that it had produced a new flickable keyboard named Furikku. Google Cardboard also announced a new product entitled Cardboard Plastic, a headset for “Actual Reality”, while YouTube revealed the concept #Snoopavision, enabling viewers to watch any videos in 360 with Snoop Dogg.

Which brand pranks were your favourites? And did you stage any jokes this year? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and share your comments on our Facebook page.