5 Company Pranks On April Fools' Day

Loading...
Loading...
April Fools' Day can be a great public relations opportunity for companies, but it can also turn into a strange marketing campaign that no one really understands involving
wolf pigeons and shark falcons
. Tesla CEO Elon Musk may not be a fan of companies participating in the festivities. But apparently blog writers at his company are. Here's a round-up of the best pranks companies came up with this year.
Tesla
Forget self-driving cars.
TeslaTSLA
wants to let your pet drive you around. A
blog post
from the automaker announced its new venture to create pet-driving cars. The blog explains that they first tried dogs and cats, but landed on fish as the best pet chauffeurs because their aquatic nature equips them with a Zen-like calm. Musk is quoted as saying his “little chum, Eric the goldfish, has an uncanny sense for what direction to swim or drive.”
Related: 25 Year-Evolution Of Startups With Brad FeldGoogle
Notorious for its April Fools' Day pranks,
GoogleGOOG
never fails to come out with new ones each year. This year's antic involves a worldwide search for the company's newly-created position of Pokemon Master. A promotional video for the gig explains that Google maps users can now find Pokemon in the app. There's even a disclaimer at the end that warns side effects of the challenge may include “extreme excitement and a sense of accomplishment.” Although the job opening might not be real, you can actually find Pokemon in the latest version of the iPhone and Android app.
SamsungSamsungSSNLF
Loading...
Loading...
came out with a “wearable glove” called
Samsung Fingers
, where users can literally talk to the hand. The sketch shows a regular-sized glove with an LED screen on the palm, and wearers can make calls by assuming the rock-concert “hand horn” gesture. Its features include “palm-rec” where the glove can recognize any object placed in it and give the user a recommendation on what to do with it. The glove can also amplify voices and snaps to the point of overwhelming others, “much like a vuvuzela.”
Sam Adams
The
Boston Beer CompanySAM
announced
a new beer
from Sam Adams, available for one day only: HeliYUM. It's a beer that “leverages the first of the six noble gases,” the company's website says. A video about the brew shows Sam Adams founder Jim Koch explaining the beer's flavor, and getting a very high-pitched voice every time he takes a sip. Other people drinking the beer get the giggles and experience lightheadedness.
Frito-LayPepsiCo'sPEP
Frito-Lay sent out a press release saying that Cheetos mascot Chester Cheetah would enter the cologne market with Cheeteau. The scent is a “prestige, limited-edition fragrance that celebrates the irreverent, intriguing and playful nature of the iconic feline with a scent bold enough to excite and delight,” the release said. There's even a black-and-white, romantic advertisement for the fragrance on its own
Samsung Fingers
.
Loading...
Loading...
Posted In: NewsGeneralApril Fools' DayElon Muskfrito-layPokemonSam Adamstwitter
Benzinga simplifies the market for smarter investing

Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.

Join Now: Free!

Loading...