Blog post -
The corporate April Fool - great brand building or a waste of resources?
Ok, ok, this post is partly an excuse to revisit a few choice tricks, but we also want to at least raise the question. Is all this fun a good use of time and money? We digital folk are always extolling the virtue of brands showing a bit of personality online, of sharing more than just dry press releases with consumers. But in the current economic climate, is it right to appear to have too much time on your hands? Is it right to create content purely for content’s sake, with no clear call to action and ROI? How do you measure success? Do you need to?
Here at MyNewsdesk UK towers we’re are particularly fond of Google’s efforts this year. In case you missed them (or can’t resist another look) here they are.
The search for Autocompleters
Like any corporate, Google promotes its own jobs on its pages. On 1st April there was a new link at the bottom of search suggestions stating that “Google is hiring Autocompleters”. A quick click took you to a job description which include this video of current job holder, former Spellchecker Michael Taylor.
The introduction of Gmail Motion
Users logging onto Gmail on 1st April were introduced to yet another innovation from Google to make our online life easier: the motion sensitive email. (Who needs Kinect when sending messages is such fun?)
Feel the burn
Then there was the exercise video for Chromercise: give your fingers a full workout as they try to keep up with Chrome’s speed. There was even a link to an order form for a set of the finger sweatbands. (Sadly it seems we were too slow on that front and they’ve run out. What a shame.)
Just look at the viewing figures for these. Has anyone done better than Google? We’d love you to share the ones you loved (or even fell for….)
The April Fool. Done well, a memetastic way to raise your brand’s profile.
