I was given 10 reasons to love April Fools’ Advertisements in Trinidad and Tobago. In 2021, April 1st was very delightful on social media. Smiles for so!
This year I was really surprised and thoroughly delighted to see a high quality of local April Fools’ Advertisements this year. I feel like clients are probably more open to really innovative ideas for this particular day cause in a strange way, it doesn’t matter.
Being ridiculous is part of the whole game. In my opinion, I think it should be close enough to the brand to fool them cause fooling people is the name of the game as well.
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“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
While I haven’t worked in an agency for some years, I thought it would be cool to blog about my favorite ads, ones I think have the potential to be better and give a polite mention and a salute to the creative minds and agencies they came from.
Now I haven’t seen every single one of the April fools’ advertisements produced yesterday, but if I left any out I hope you would let me know In the comments. Also, for the sake of time and relevance, these ads are in no particular order. I even threw in some honorable mentions at the end.
Best April Fools’ Advertisements – What Qualifies?
I think some ads intend to be really good pranks because they are somewhat believable and some just intend to be so ridiculous that they make you laugh.
That being said, being a good prank means that it should be in the realm of things that brand could do, but probably won’t… or even something you want them to do, but they won’t. For the more ridiculous ads it still needs to be somewhat appropriate to the personality of the brand.
If it’s just something far off the brands personality or it just doesn’t have a relevant connection, you run the risk of just trying too hard. Let’s see if I can explain this a bit better as we move along.
Crix Corn Flakes
This is relatable on so many levels, because of the pandemic and its effect on the economy and people’s jobs. CRIX has been synonymous with “Hard Times” for many people in Trinidad. Having a CRIX branded cereal could be very believable. The photoshop execution is a bit poor, but I don’t think it matters. The idea comes across loud and clear. I think this was my favorite ad of the day. It made me smile immediately.
Carib Drone
This one I find is trying a bit too hard. It’s one of the ads I looked at and had to say “Yep, it’s April 1st”. I’ll give it credit for being absolutely ridiculous, but I think to be totally effective it should also have some relation to the personality of the brand itself. It should be remotely believable, similar to how The Onion approaches their articles.
Carib never delivered to begin with, so drone delivery is just … way out there. I remember Amazon did something similar, but when you really think of it, all Amazon does is deliver. I’d have totally been an April Fool seeing an Amazon or UPS drone delivering a package.
Make It Bigger?
The guys over at Global Brands seem to think April Fools ads are all about just making things bigger. Yeah, I’m sure most creatives would agree that this has been done. I don’t think I need to say much about these
April Fools Flippers
I’m pretty sure Shoeaholics, just do their own thing. I really doubt they have an agency or a design boutique. It goes to show that you don’t need to go to a big agency to come up with an excellent concept. The hilarious thing about this is that I’m pretty sure these actually exist and the owner of Shoeaholics probably has a pair, probably just for fun. Good Job… absolutely ridiculous
Shake and Bark
I think that this one is not outside the realm of actual possibilities. I mean, KFC already sells fish sandwiches, don’t they? Besides that, KFC all around the world can really get all sorts of weird. Different countries have totally different menu items and depending on where you go, you will see some unbelievable stuff.
Deep fried corn soup in Japan, shrimp burgers and chicken feet in China, Vegetable strips in India. If this wants April 1st, I’d have believed it.
Green Just Got Greener
A CBD flavored STAG is ridiculously appropriate. I don’t think the intention here was to try and fool anyone, but just to be absolutely and appropriately stupid. What is also great about it is that they took the ridiculousness very seriously with the execution.
Ereqcion
This one took me a little while. From the makers of Hard Wine comes… Ereqcion. Correia’s is one of those brands that has been allowed to get away with some really liberal concepts lately. They have been allowed to not take themselves too seriously and through that they have produced some really eye catching and hilarious ads. The Hardwine brand has also become somewhat of a meme, and I love it. It sits well with the current culture of how we consume media right now.
WO Toothpaste
I’m a bit torn with this one. I’m trying to figure it out. What’s the connection between rum and toothpaste that makes this funny? Is it that rum gives you bad breath? With the amount of really good and quality ads launching on this particular day, this can easily be overlooked.
Sunday Lunch Muffin
While I do find this sort of approach acceptable, I did expect a bit more from a McCann Group ad. This is the kinda solution that would be the 1st thumbnail in my preliminary and rough work. I have found that after you get rid of all the easy expected ideas, the more original, better ideas come after. This simply needed more time, love and attention spent on it. The 1s solution that comes to your mind is often never the best one.
Carriage Express
I was glad to have my attention drawn to this one by a former colleague and friend. Also not done by a big agency, this was produced by a small team called Connective Pros on Instagram. I have to admit, I was not familiar with the name “Allridi” at the start, but after a quick google, and realising that this is a RideShare company, I saw the connection immediately. I think this is a good example of taking advantage of the opportunity that is April fools to really get your name and service out there.
Stay Clean
Once again, I’m not sure what to say. What’s the connection? Alcohol and Hygiene? These things should be unambiguous. Without something holding it true to the brand, it can easily be overlooked. The execution is quite perfect however.
Conclusion
I don’t know why I chose to do this, but it was fun anyway. My main take away from this is that the additional value and cleverness that comes with using an agency is dwindling. You can get extremely creative solutions from the small man. Let NuArtillery design your next Holiday greeting!