Brands missing the opportunities in April Fool’s Day

April Fool’s Day is a good excuse for brands to have some fun, and provides a valuable opportunity to connect with consumers. But this year’s pickings were slim for South African brands. Only a few brands made use of the opportunity. Was this because consumers are more concerned with politics right now? 

The dearth of April Fool’s advertising was perhaps best summed up by popular news website Daily Maverick’s pithy headline: “April Fool’s 2016 cancelled until further notice. We couldn’t come up with anything half as mad as SA reality today. Sorry.”

According to advertising and branding specialist Andy Rice, though, the decline can be tracked back several years. Fifteen years ago, he says, brands would take out full-page spreads on 1 April.

“Brands should heed the opportunity because we all take ourselves too seriously and we need more irreverent advertising with humour,” says Rice.

MyBroadband was one that did join the fun. It announced the launch of its “warp speed mobile Internet service, Li-Fi” – 1 Gbps uncapped mobile broadband for R99 per month. Showmax claimed a “power bingeing” function that speeds up TV shows and movies by 42%.

Land Rover said it would begin production on a new Discovery bakkie from 2017, and Berman Brothers Properties announced construction of an exclusive estate in Lion’s Head Nature Reserve, with luxury two- to four-bedroom apartments available from R5.6m – and making access to Lion’s Head and Signal Hill impossible for the general public.

“A brand’s priority is to be seen and in the cluttered media landscape of today, this is getting harder to achieve,” Rice points out. “April Fool’s can be an effective way to be seen, as it allows brands the creative scope to take a swipe at a current social or cultural norm through humour. Employing humour as a tool is a great way to connect with individuals, but it’s important that consumers know it’s a spoof so as not to leave a bad taste in their mouths.”

The big take-out: South African brands are failing to take full advantage of the opportunities that April Fool’s Day advertising offers – deeper relationships with customers through humour. Branding expert Andy Rice argues that it could help brands to be seen in a cluttered landscape.