Friday marked one of my favorite days of the year. While I’m not personally great at foolin’ others, I always enjoy seeing what brands do with the holiday.
While many companies kept their tributes to April Fools’ Day subtle with subject and promo codes, other brands had a little more fun.
This year, RedBox joked with subscribers about how the company was hiring “kiosk ambassadors.”
Here are some of the emails that caught our eye on Friday:
RedBox
Subject Line: Love movies? We’ve got a job for you.
This year, RedBox joked with subscribers about how the company was hiring “kiosk ambassadors.” The email advertised that these individuals would need to be comfortable sitting in small “very, very small spaces” for 8+ hours a day. While this year’s email wasn’t as elaborate as last year’s Petbox email, it still caught the eye of subscribers.
Just now going through my email from the past week and I have to say, @redbox had the best #AprilFools joke.
— Stacy Haynes (@StacyeHaynes) April 3, 2016
PetSmart
Subject line: How to acclimate your jackalope.
Animals were a big theme in last year’s April Fools’ emails, and this year was no different – even if the animals weren’t, you know, real. PetSmart informed subscribers how they could train their jackalope with this fun campaign.
@PetSmart made me smile today. I imagine staffers sitting around doing the #jackalope email & tweets. I love it.
— now what? (@rindahouse) April 1, 2016
Homage
Subject line: A Candidate You Can Count On
Ohio-based T-shirt company Homage decided to use April Fools’ Day to tell subscribers which politician it would be endorsing – well, sort of. With creative akin to presidential contender Bernie Sanders’ logo, Homage informed subscribers it would be voting for Bernie – Bernie Kosar, that is. Kosar was a quarterback for the Cleveland Browns from 1985 to 1993.
I’ll admit, @HOMAGE April Fooled me with this email. Spoiler: It’s for a Bernie Kosar shirt pic.twitter.com/ke5PsMSiqS
— Tom Knox (@TomKnoxBiz1st) April 1, 2016
LOFT
Women’s clothing brand LOFT advertised their April Fools’ sale: 0 percent off in-store and online.
Subject line: JK
Women’s clothing brand LOFT advertised their April Fools’ sale: 0% off in-store and online. However, with creative use of a GIF, subscribers found out what the subject line indicated – just kidding, the sale was actually for 50% off (click the image below to view gif).
.@LOFT won my heart with their email today.
1. The subject line “JK”
2. The gif free going from 0% to 50%
So I shopped. You guys win.— Michelle Richard (@michellejourdan) April 1, 2016
BirchBox
Subject line: We went to a REALLY Emotional Wedding This Weekend…
Subscription-based sample company Birchbox had fun with its subject line and included a punny joke in the main creative of its Friday send. The company even advertised free jokes with any purchase.
However, not all April Fools’ pranks went well for brands. Google tried to prank users by adding a “Mic Drop” feature, which involved adding a button within Gmail that added a Despicable Me minion GIF to emails upon send. After heavy backlash, Google killed the feature and has since issued a detailed apology.
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