Home › Blog › April Fools’ Roundup 2015
April Fools’ Day has just passed and we hope all of those who were subjected to pranks found them amusing and not distressing. As we’ve already outlined in our previous post, it’s now become a tradition of our times for major companies to take part in some form of shenanigans on this day. So here’s our picks for the best April Fools’ pranks of 2015:
Google Pac-Man: The Calif-based Internet monolith had another banner April Fools’, committing multiple noteworthy mischiefs, making one wonder how much free time its employees have to plan such elaborate pranks. Google started the day with probably the cutest joke of the day, via its Japan offices, with the Google Panda. It’s a cuddly panda toy that replies to one’s queries through the application of Google’s voice recognition technology (it’s a Siri that gives cuddles).
However, Google Maps once again won the intra-company crown for best prank of the year with its amazingly addictive Pac-Man hack. Fans of retro-gaming were able to indulge their love by clicking the Pac-Man icon within the map’s app and play the classic game using any street in the world. The game is more suited to the wide and mostly straight roads of the US but the tight turns of London streets do provide a novel challenge.
PlayStation Flow: Sticking with the gaming motif for just a little longer, Sony’s contribution was to answer a question nobody asked. Namely, what it would be like to play games underwater. The faux device, dubbed PlayStation Flow, is made up of four sensors which will give feedback to the players swimming motions when playing a water segment in a game.
Dominoes Self-Delivering Pizza: The final entry for the week goes to the well-known pizza chain who tried to sate its customers hunger via self-delivering pizza.
All of these hoaxes accomplished more than fun. Google Panda demonstrated how it’s Now voice recognition software is comparable to Siri, Sony wetted (yes that’s an intentional pun) peoples appetites for VR technology that is actually in the works and Dominoes got us hungry enough that we ordered ourselves a pizza when we got home!
Marketing, though measurable, is a creative field and it requires creative minds, like those at Plus 1 Digital, to help a brand stand out from the crowd so let us help you plan your next April Fools’ prank.