How To Create A Successful April Fool’s Video
The April Fool’s Day video has a long, rich history of successfully tricking people into believing fake products or unusual natural phenomenon existed.
From the BBC’s hoax Panorama report on spaghetti trees in 1957 through to last year’s infamous launch of Google Actual Cloud, these videos have been surprising and delighting audiences for decades.
Bigger brands have the clout to hire in actors, up the production value and deliver crisply edited movies. Created months in advance, they have all the sheen and the polish of bonafide comedy shorts. But this doesn’t mean you can’t make something on a smaller scale that really connects with people.
This year, we put together this little video for our client CitiPark.
The idea was simple. People understood it immediately. And the whole thing was packaged together like a regular product launch video.
Talking head interviews with actual staff provided legitimacy, but we also used a great website called Voicebunny for the narration track, lending the video an authoritative air. The process was quick and intuitive – we simply uploaded chunks of the script and included instructions on how we’d like it delivered. The key was to keep it all as dead-pan as possible.
By storyboarding the idea and writing the script beforehand, we made the shoot itself as simple as possible. We used a D-SLR camera with a 50mm prime lens for close-ups and a 18–105mm zoom lens for the wider shots. Sticking a Go-Pro to the side of the car meant we were able to grab a bit of extra B-roll footage we could cut in – useful for hiding edits. For sound, we used a basic shotgun microphone mounted on top of the camera. Then we cut the whole thing together using Adobe Premiere Pro CC.
After that, it was simply a case of uploading to Youtube, pushing it out on social media and waiting for the reaction.
Keep the joke simple. The less complex the idea is, the quicker people will “get” it. If you leave them feeling confused by in-jokes or unfamiliar jargon, they’re much more likely to disengage. Cut to the chase. And don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself – have fun and it’ll shine through.
Keep the video short. You may have hours and hours of hilarious footage, but no-one wants to see it. Select the very best bits. Try and keep the final cut under two and a half minutes.
Plan in advance. Give yourself time. For video, there’s little point trying to turn something around in the final week of March. Plan as far ahead as possible and stick to the commitment. Once you have an idea everyone’s on board with, put in the time and energy required to bring it to life – remember, for some people, this may be the only opportunity they’ll have to engage with you.
Stay true to your brand. No matter how outlandish your concept, if you’re using your video to promote your brand, keep everything in tact. So use the right logo, the correct fonts and so on – put the same amount of effort into these things as you would for a “serious” video.
Reach out. This should be intrinsically shareable content, even if you don’t normally create content that’s designed to be shareable. Use this chance to get your business or product in front of as many eyeballs as possible – distribute on any pre-existing email lists, submit to blogs and see if any press are interested. If it’s good enough content, with a little luck it may travel further than you think.