April Fool Marketing, 2016 Edition

The calendar shows why brands are giving us a smile today: It's April Fool, so let's enjoy the marketing jokes. 

Royal Caribbean, known for cruise marketing, has a new venture, announced (just by accident?!) on April 1: its latest vacation opportunity, Orbiter of the Galaxies. Reservations will be taken for "cruises" starting in 2030.

Think Geek has, as always, a variety of almost-plausible products on its site. How about the Star Trek White Noise Sleep Machine? Only $149.99. Dream on.

 Southwest Airlines has a new gimmick for April Fool's Day: "Cash Lav" which takes place inside the jet bathroom. Here's the link. Good luck!

One last prank: Coca-Cola batteries, courtesy of the company's Japanese arm. Sure, caffeine gives everyone a shot of energy. April Fool!

New Multichannel Synergy for Think Geek?

Think Geek--the online retailer of nerd pop-culture stuff--has an interesting backstory and, I hope, a bright future.

It's always on my radar on April Fool's Day. But it returned to my radar late in May, when the teen clothing retailer Hot Topic announced it was acquiring Think Geek's parent, Geeknet. The idea was for Hot Topic to leverage Think Geek's e-commerce experience and become more adept at multichannel marketing. FYI, Hot Topic's motto is "the loudest store in the mall." True.

That was actually the beginning, not the end, of a speedy turn of events as shown above, from Geeknet's investor relations page. Turns out Hot Topic was outbid by a "strategic acquiror" that, we learned a few days later, was GameStop. So Hot Topic found Geeknet snatched from it by GameStop's higher bid within days of announcing the acquisition. End of story (pending antitrust review).

Not everyone thinks GameStop is the best parent for Think Geek. On the other hand, others (including me) see multichannel synergy in combining two businesses that cater to target markets that have considerable overlap.

April Fool Marketing: Learn Klingon, Spray Yourself with Cheeteau

It's time for a new crop of viral-ready "April Fool's Day" marketing tricks to make us smile and share with friends.

• ThinkGeek wants you to buy its new exclusive Rosetta Stone software to learn Klingon (see right). Click to buy and you can earn 8,210.3 Geek points. Who needs this product? ThinkGeek helpfully notes: "Klingon may be a difficult language for humans to wrap their smooth heads around, but it's made even more complicated by the constant threat that saying the wrong thing might accidentally land you in a battle to the death."
• Google Maps invites you to become a Pokemon Master and help round up the hundreds of wild Pokemon out there in the wild. "We value employees who are risk-taking and detail-oriented, have deep technical knowledge, and can navigate through tall grass to capture wild creatures. It turns out that these skills have a lot in common with another profession—that of the Pokémon Master."
• Google+ is offering "Auto Awesome Photobombs" that may, if you're lucky, insert David Hasselhoff into your uploaded photos. Check out the hashtag #Hoffsome.
• UK grocery chain Tesco is marketing the Cudl, the world's first couples tablets. You and a loved one are never far from each other with tethered Cudl tabs. But Tesco also offers the Hudl tablet for real.
• Frito-Lay wants you to spritz yourself with a little Cheeteau "prestige fragrance" to carry the aroma of freshly-baked Cheetos wherever you go. See below. "Unexpected...Undeniable." Well, cheesy, anyway!

ThinkGeek Fools Again

ThinkGeek has its usual crop of funny, faux products for April 1st. Want to buy Minecraft Marshmallow Creeps (like Peeps but green with menacing faces)? Or K-cups 5-star Meals (brew up your own fresh corn dogs in a hurry)? Whichever faux product you click to buy, you'll see "Gotcha" and a winking smiley-face, as above.

Gizmodo likes ThinkGeek's "Hungry Hungry Hippos iPad Game." The Chicago Tribune notes that one of the fake products from 2010, the iCade, has become real. Sometime soon, those Marshmallow Creeps or Hungry Hungry Hippos game might be available for sale. Or not.

ThinkGeek's "Gotcha"--Viral Marketing and Research

Did you see ThinkGeek's April Fool's products? If not, click here and browse this year's crop, along with the fun items made up for previous years. They're worth a few minutes of mousing around. You'll smile!

Online/catalog marketer ThinkGeek rings up serious profits from its $76 million in annual sales, and the company is growing like kudzu. On any day other than April 1st, its products range from the very practical to the highly whimsical, with descriptions written by some of the best copywriters in the business (IMHO).

This year's April Fool's products included the Playmobil Mini-Apple Store (Genius Bar shown above).  As silly as these fake products may be, ThinkGeek gets a lot of mileage from its April Fool's pages. They're great for stirring up a storm of viral marketing and lots of free publicity as media outlets comment on the gag items.

Along the way, ThinkGeek throws in a little bit of marketing research. If you click to buy an April Fool's product, you're taken to a screen titled "Gotcha!" Right below, it asks the real question: "Want these products for real?! Let us know!" Check the boxes for any fake product you might be interested in, and leave your e-mail address. Who knows, ThinkGeek might just put Angry Birds Pork Rinds into production if enough people leave their e-mail addresses.

Actually, Wired's Gadget Lab blog notes that more than a few ThinkGeek prank products wind up as real after a few months. It's pushing for this year's Star Wars Lightsaber Popsicle kit to go on the market--by summer.