This week in viral: The epic fails & wins of April Fools' brand jokes

It’s all about marketing, even during a non-holiday like April Fool’s Day. From big names like Samsung to unknown brands, everyone has seen that producing TV ads, social media campaigns, quirky unrealistic announcements or even a clearly photoshopped image can help a brand name go viral, for better or for worse. Even some reputable organizations and departments are joining in the celebration of this day in a wholesome kind of way, hopefully.

But the trick, as with any joke, is to be tasteful. How can you avoid offending anyone when that’s the “name of the game” during April Fool’s Day, aside from conducting an extreme prank that leaves prankees feeling like, well, fools?

Well, I guess it all pays off because some news outlets have picked up some of these stories as “real things/announcements/services/products.” And some of these fake products seem very cool. Some brands even released their jokes a day before, on March 31, 2015.

Did you play any pranks or jokes on your employees, family, friends or clients? Or did you see any jokes from brands that caught your attention? Leave them in the comments below.

Here are some of the best and worst April Fools’ jokes from brands for 2015.

Epic wins

1. Google Map’s Pac Man, reverse Google and more:

• An in-browser videogame:
  I feel like Google has come up as No. 1, top of the top, in many lists recently (such as in Forbes Best Places to Work For 2015 or Ethisphere’s Most Ethical Companies), so it’s no surprise that the company, again, tops this list with their mini Pac Man game. The coolest thing? It’s in your Google Maps page, on the lefthand side (below, a screenshot of downtown Denver).  

• Mirror Google:

  It’s reversed Google day at https://com.google/ (screenshot from reverse Google).

• ChromeSelfie:

This is a widget for “content reaction selfies.” The idea is that a selfie will be taken with your reaction to whatever you’re reading. Creepy and maybe not that far off from reality. The photo below, taken from Google’s blog, shows a young adult lady looking incredibly sad that her favorite One Direction boy-band singer is no longer part of that band.

• Smartbox by Inbox:
  Mailmen everywhere rejoice! A new kind of intuitive mailbox is here.

Esurance’s “Presurance” predicts fender benders

We’re pretty sure that this fake app car insurance service is not that far off from the future of the insurance industry. How it works: “through precognitive technology” that we think they stole from the movie Minority Report, the app warns the users up to one week before they have a fender bender. It’s an interesting concept, but a more pressing question would be: If you know that you’re getting into a fender bender, is there a way to avoid it?

The selfie shoe

You read that right! It’s a shoe that you can insert your phone into and take a selfie. The video below explains it further.

This fake product is obviously poking fun at the ridiculousness that are selfie sticks which are real things that are being sold right now. I feel that they should’ve made selfie shoes for guys too because we know that they are also part of the selfie-obsessed millennial generation. The ad is so credible, that even the USA Today fell for this fake product (and you can read that here). The selfie shoe was created by a real shoe company based in New York City called Miz Mooz. The buzz around this prank was great enough that their website crashed for a good part of the day!

See also: 10 most influential advisors and investors on social media 2015

Nissan’s real non-April Fools’ Day campaign

Some people decide to make outlandish claims during a day like April Fools’. Nissan took it further, making what would seem impossible or wacky claims, then proving that, in fact, they have accomplished said things.

For example: Nissan has a glow-in-the-dark Leaf (their electric car) and is going to develop and deploy “autonomous drive vehicles” space by the end of 2015 with NASA. Look at some of their tweets, styled in photos and text as if they were published in a National Inquirer cover.

Fetch, the new poofume for dogs

How many times have you seen the Cool Waters or Brad Pitt’s Chanel No.5 perfume ads? This fake dog perfume, called Fetch and made by a website dedicated to dog news called 3MillionDogs.com, makes fun of all those slow-motion, black and white fancy perfume TV ads. Now, if I had a dog, I don’t know if I would buy this poofume for him. See the poofume ad below.

Unleashed by Petco: dog selfie stick

Some people actually thought that this product was a real thing and rushed to Petco to buy it, only to find out that … April Fools’! At least this selfie stick didn’t feature yet another self-absorbed young lady. The photo to the left is their fake campaign.

UK’s Domi-NO-Driver 

Leave it to the British and their quirky sense of humor to come up with something that might exist soon: a robot called the Domi-NO-Driver that delivers happiness, I mean, pizzas.

Jimmy John’s drone delivery

Well played, Jimmy John’s! This idea might become our reality in the near future.