April Fool’s Day is coming, and I’m giving you a marketing guide and promotion minefields!

Now it is less than two weeks away from April Fools' Day , and the marketing departments of various companies should have started planning April Fools' activities. This article will talk about how to have fun on April Fools' Day.

1. Release “fake products” to attract attention

April Fools' Day can be said to be a festival for imagination. A spoof product is released, a set of promotional posters are made seriously, and even a TVC is filmed. If you have a little more strength, you can hold a special fake product launch conference. There are two things to note:

(1) The content itself has its own spread rate

The content itself needs to have the property of self-propagation, and be able to generate user attention and spread independently when delivered through a small number of channels , which is what we call a viral coefficient of more than 1. The most topical elements are sex, fun, and privacy.

(2) Serious nonsense

1) Complete promotional materials:

Fake products are marketed as if they were real new products, including making relevant materials and placing appropriate advertisements, thus creating a strong contrast. Even if you don’t put it on mass channels, at least your own official website, WeChat public account and other self-media still need to speak out seriously.

2) Advanced technical evidence:

Through a series of incomprehensible high-tech evidence, the fake products are made to sound very grand, causing cognitive conflict and producing a foolish effect.

For example, if you are a seller of ordinary daily chemical products, you can promote a fake product by saying that it combines quantum mechanics theory, genetic biotechnology, blockchain and other black technologies. You can also put various incomprehensible calculation formulas in the product description to make it appear serious and high-end.

For example, in 2017, Mayu ’s shared sanitary napkins were not only accompanied by the slogan “Make it easy to find sanitary napkins in the world”, but also seriously made a set of promotional images and a small amount of advertising.

Not only that, we also prepared a series of app store screenshots, app pages, product details pages, promotional articles, soft articles, etc. Even after April Fools' Day, one could still see messages online from netizens asking whether the project was real or not.

Looking at many brands , the concepts of their product launches each year are different, but generally they follow the major technological trends. The main concepts this year are: blockchain, driverless cars , genetic technology, planetary migration, etc. As long as you grasp one of them and combine it with the product, you can make an interesting April Fools' Day product launch.

2. Fake IDs and fake news to trick friends

Pranks between users and friends are the main theme of April Fools' Day, and fake ID generators have been popular among users since the H5 era in 2016.

Whether it is just a payment slip generator for various luxury cars and luxury houses, a marriage certificate and divorce certificate generator, or a fake confession or company fake news, it can still attract a large wave of traffic . There are several major types:

(1) Fake ID Generator

Generate various certificates and news to induce users to spread them automatically, and what we need to grasp is the user psychology of showing off and snooping. The focus of this form is whether it is interesting and fun.

For example, Hupu launched a fake news generator two years ago. It only required the input of a person’s name to automatically generate fake news and take screenshots to spread it. The spread effect exceeded one million in just one day.

(2) Friend’s Prank Tool

Reposts and pranks between friends use exaggerated pictures and titles to attract users, luring them to click and then find out they have been tricked. This form needs to pay more attention to privacy and personal characteristics in terms of content. After all, forwarding behavior between users is private and has strong personal characteristics.

For example, Lizhi FM once launched an April Fool's Day prank H5, which achieved a prank effect by selecting various horror titles and forwarding the H5. When the forwarded user opens the link, he/she sees the activity H5 and a spoof copy .

(3) Company false news release

One of the company's major external publicity methods is to release company announcements. Many brands will choose to release fake announcements on April Fools' Day to achieve the effect of playing a prank on others. You can issue an announcement saying that the company has been listed on a fictional exchange, or has received billions of dollars in investment from a fictional institution.

For example, Tencent once released fake news that the company was moving to Antarctica, and Huxiu.com once released a self-deprecating announcement about moving out of Beijing.

3. Product Page for Prank

For Internet products, the UI interface is the channel for interaction between the product and the user. Through the visual changes of the product page, users can directly gain a new experience, and at the same time, combined with various marketing activities , a prank effect can be created.

Commonly used methods include: turning the screen upside down, replacing product text with symbols, broken screen effect, misaligned borders that drive people with obsessive-compulsive disorder crazy, etc.

For example, Google once reversed the direction of the homepage search page for April Fools' Day, and Alipay also reversed the up and down direction of the screen on April Fools' Day:

4. April Fools’ Day Reversal Poster

As a common means of promotion, brand posters are suitable for all types of companies. April Fools' Day posters generally have the following routines:

(1) Lies from the Heart poster

Starting from lies and exposing the heart-wrenching emotions and brand propositions behind the lies is basically applicable to every brand.

(2) Posters that say the opposite of what you mean

It seems to be talking about the shortcomings of the product, but in fact it expresses the advantages and core selling points of the product through the processing of copywriting.

(3) Negative case posters

By joking about the negative consequences of not using the product, the product's advantages are indirectly highlighted in a joking manner.

(4) Posters that don’t lie

On April Fools' Day, all companies are playing with the concept of joking, but unlike mainstream brands, not lying can also be a good entry point, whether it is to convey the benefits of the event or the authenticity of the product.

We have talked about so many routines, but jokes and user experience are like a double-edged sword. If used well, they can bring huge exposure , but if used poorly, they can easily cause collective complaints. Here are four points to pay attention to in April Fools’ Day promotion .

Four minefields for April Fools' Day promotions

1. Control psychological expectations

If you tell others that you are going to give out red envelopes, it is best to actually send out the red envelopes in some interesting way, rather than having a Happy April Fools' Day message pop up after entering the red envelope page. This behavior is very low.

On the one hand, don't try to make serious jokes, such as those related to prizes or money; on the other hand, if you can't do that, don't give users too high psychological expectations and then the gap will be too big. For example, if you give a 1,000 yuan voucher, but you actually give a 1,000 yuan voucher for buying a Maserati, that's too much. Don't let users feel that you are playing tricks on them.

2. Pay attention to brand tone

All promotions in the market need to be carried out in accordance with the brand strategy, among which the coordination of brand tone and content tone is very important, otherwise it will cause cognitive conflicts among consumers.

For example, products that use UI inversion as an April Fool's Day product activity are all popular and consumer products with lively brand tone, which are suitable for playing small jokes on users. However, if your brand is highly professional and emphasizes credibility, this type of operation is not suitable. For example, government, financial , and authoritative media. For example, don't make vulgar and low-brow jokes with consumers.

3. Does not seriously affect user experience

The premise of a joke is that it does not affect the user experience too much. For example, if the text on the app page is changed to be difficult to recognize, or the screen is turned upside down to make it difficult to use, it will actually damage the user experience and affect the operating data. So generally speaking, the April Fools' Day page that has changes in the UI will have a switch to the normal interface, or the product page itself will be extremely simple.

The same is true for other online and offline product promotions. April Fools' Day activities are to increase the fun of the event and user activity, but they cannot affect the product usage experience under normal circumstances.

4. Prepare a public relations crisis plan

Although April Fools' Day activities are fun, they can turn into a complaints show if you're not careful. Being prepared for public relations crisis plans is an essential part of any large-scale promotional campaign today. Once widespread user complaints occur, an apology draft and a compensation plan need to be prepared quickly.

How to calm emotions, clarify attitudes, customize compensation plans, and implement details all require preliminary planning in advance, and public opinion must be monitored at all times. If you are promoting online, you must also prepare a contingency plan and user-friendly language in case the link is blocked.

Let's get things done quickly, and look forward to the April Fool's Day works of various brands this year~~

The author of this article @郑卓然 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games