Believe nothing, trust no one

Good

Velveeta cheese, which is often described as creamy - just like moisturisers are often described as creamy – put these two ideas together in its April Fools’ Day campaign. ‘V by Velveeta’ promotes a non-existent new line of luxury skincare products that “gives you the golden glow you’ve come to love from eating Velveeta”. Doubling down on the joke, the cheese brand also has a waitlist where users can submit their details to be notified when the products will be available for purchase – hopefully never!

Melty Moisturisation

Bad

Deliveroo have missed the mark this April Fool’s Day when they pranked their French customers. Thousands of unassuming Deliveroo users across France got confirmation emails for orders worth more than €450. This badly misjudged trick seemingly had a lot of people worried, with reports of many recipients panicking and trying to call their banks to block any payment. One user took to Twitter and said, “This is chicken-brain communications!” and another said he had "almost had a stroke" after receiving a €466 invoice for 38 pizzas that he had never ordered.

A Deliveroo Disaster

Brilliant

Language-learning app Duolingo takes the crown for best April Fool’s joke. Their idea was convincing, it had style while staying relevant to the brand, it was well thought out and executed, and taught us something new that was linked to the brand’s offering. The app posted on their Twitter that they are launching Duolingo Roll – individually packaged toilet paper that has phrases you can learn in different languages written on the packaging. The convincing part is that they even conducted a survey in preparation for the prank, a web page, and posted some insightful stats to back up the launch (apparently, we spend 14 mins per day on the toilet – so why not put that time to good use?). The best part? The Duolingo Rolls have actually been manufactured and will be given away on social media.

私の猫は弁護士です

Special Mention

Our own client Saint Agur tricked people on Facebook and Instagram on April 1^st: using a new technology they created Saint Agur Bespoke Cheese, which can feature any name of up to ten characters appearing within the blue veins of the cheese. Gutted this one isn’t real but great work by their creative agency Brilliant.