Some of the best and wackiest April Fool’s stunts 2024
By Ella Horncastle on Wednesday, April 3, 2024
April Fool’s Day was once again upon us on Monday, serving as the playground for PR teams worldwide as they are granted the freedom to dream up and create the campaigns and products that will never be made. Here are some of our favourites:
To the classical tune of ‘Sound of da Police’, Western Australia Police Force debuted their new, chic footwear – crocs in sports mode. The announcement read: “From today, all officers will be issued custom footwear to enhance speed on foot chases. Aerodynamically designed with Sports Mode features, the sleek and stylish addition to the WA Police uniform will ensure we can’t be outrun.” Safe to say, the post went viral.
Duolingo surprised once again with the announcement of “Duolingo On Ice”. The elaborate joke was complete with a hilarious, star-studded trailer and parody ticketing site, promising 4 hours 17 minutes of entertainment and specially curated songs including “Japanese or Broken Knees”. With the promo video directed by a Golden Globe Winner and choreographed by an Emmy award winner, the amount of effort that went into this campaign was unparalleled.
FUNKIN Cocktails made the shocking revelation that Blue Raspberries do actually exist, inviting the public to the pick their own at the UK’s first and only blue raspberry fruit farm. Apparently, playing “sad girl pop music” by Olivia Rodrigo and Lana Del Ray is the secret to turning your raspberries blue… who knew!
Tinder posted a new job role for a ‘Vice President for Ghost Hunting’, someone dedicated to ‘exorcising all ghosts’ and relentlessly pursuing reasons behind unanswered texts. Whilst not as iconic as their 2023 prank banning men holding fish photos, seeking justice for ghosting is long overdue.
Aldi announced a new reality TV Show – Love Aisleland – that would allow shoppers to apply for their chance to find love in the supermarket aisle. Yet, it was actually the announcement that it was an April Fools that stole the show for me, with the retailers post claiming that whilst the idea was carefully reviewed within the business, it was not shown to legal and “although we give off the vibe that we love court cases, they are incredibly costly and going forward with this plan would not be ‘within our best interest”.
easyJet Holidays made stomachs turn as it announced it would be re-branding itself as easyJet Holibobs to grow their popularity following ‘extensive’ research revealing #holibobs had been searched 35M times on Tiktok. Fully aware it was using every cringe-inducing word in contemporary English, easyJet Holibobs tweeted: “Whether you’re looking for a summer holibob with your huns, a Chrimbo holibob with the hubby and famalam or a spring holibob with BAE – we have just the holibob to make your friends jelly.”
As if Marmite couldn’t get more controversial, it partnered with Love Honey to create a ‘kissable massage oil’. With the tagline ‘your favourite spread just turned saucy’ and promising to ‘bring your mornings more happiness beyond the breakfast table’, the campaign definitely turned heads.
Sustainable toilet role company, Who Gives A Crap, claimed to be planning to launch a toilet roll into space to visit Uranus – the planet at the butt of every childhood joke. Their Instagram crowdsourced names for the space shuttle (See: A-poo-lo 11 and The Millenni-bum Falcon) and a website committed to ‘Mission TP to Uranus’ with FAQs was also created: https://www.tptouranus.com/
Currys announced it would start selling actual curries in their ‘swap tech for tikka’ initiative… Peshwari for PlayStations anyone? Literally no link between the electrical retailer and food industry whatsoever apart from the name, yet that is precisely why it worked.
And finally, in a shock announcement that no doubt made many cry, Infernos nightclub – ‘the staple of Clapham’s party scene’ (Infernos), a ‘cultural melting pot of chaos… with lighting redder than Satan’s colon’ (Time Out) – announced it would be closing and transforming into a classical music hall in a bid to change its image. Rumour is Margot Robbie almost flew back to the UK to change their minds.
