“Everybody thinks they have good taste and a sense of humour”
– Carrie Fischer
Matching a joke to your audience is tricky at the best of times. Between the large numbers involved, and the fact you aren’t face to face, a funny email campaign might be the hardest gig out there.
If you are running an April Fools campaign as part of your marketing calendar, here are 5 ideas that avoid the cliches.
Deliveroo – The extra service
The easiest premise for a joke email is to take the key idea behind your product/service one step further.
Deliveroo is all about convenience, and being able to order food without even picking up your phone would certainly be convenient!
TaskRabbit – Company name wordplay
In a similar vein, does your brand name offer a possible double meaning?
Service platform TaskRabbit took this idea and ran with it, saying they would bring actual bunnies with them on jobs. Adorable!
Contiki – The tongue-in-cheek
We’ve all been there, scanning a long to-do list and a calendar full of meetings, longing for our next holiday.
Contiki’s “solution”? A carboard cut-out of yourself that can “attend” meetings while you relax on a sunlounger.
The full video is well worth a watch; firmly tongue-in-cheek, with even Contiki colleagues sceptical.
J Crew – the Anti-April Fool
This approach is a strong one if humour doesn’t really fit your brand, or if you can’t come up with something genuinely funny. Or if you get the dreaded “What are we doing for April Fools?” message at 5:20pm on March 31st from your boss.
Tackle the April Fools cliches head on, acknowledge that it’s a thing, but you’re consciously not getting involved. Everyone’s happy.
Quartz – for the (non-)fans
Not everyone likes April Fools humour.
News site Quartz latch onto the idea that having to filter out fake stories from true ones can be stressful for readers, so they promote the fact that they don’t get involved in April Fools at all.
Just a word of warning
You might well be thinking, “humour just isn’t right for our brand!” And that’s fine. Adam Hunt, the founder of White Label Comedy, said “Don’t let the joke get in the way of the actual message”. If you do go for a funny take, make sure it delivers your message, rather than distracting from it. “Funny for the sake of it” won’t fill your pipeline!
There’s certainly a rich history to draw from if you do decide to treat your audience to an April Fool, so good luck and have fun!
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