Media and marketers have their fun with April fools
April 1 brings on the fool in many of us and this year has been no exception.
The team at Mumbrella were pleased to see many of our readers picked up on our Australian Financial Review to move to broadsheet prank (a special thanks to the guys at the AFR for being such good sports).
While some people did get caught out we were particularly amused by the guys at The Australian who joined in with their own tongue-in-cheek suggestions around page 3 girls for their (potential) broadsheet rival.
Indeed, The Australian joined in rather more than it would have wished, falling for a prank from online retailer Kogan which announced its first bricks and mortar retail store to be opened by no less than Ellen, Ryan Gosling and Ricky Martin (of course). This one caught out The Australian’s IT section which published the story, bylined to Chris Griffith, only to then take it down.
Special mention also has to go to David Knox at TV Tonight for his entertaining April 1 piece: “Ten board sacks new CEO, Gina Rinehart takes charge.”
The piece includes many pearls such as the new TV show “Who wants to be a billionaire”, Adam Boland being told to produce and present the new Channel Ten breakfast show and the lukewarm response to Lachlan Murdoch returning as interim CEO. “The words ‘Everybody Dance Now’ are said to have been exchanged,” Knox wrote.
The story even caught out those who should probably know better, such as The Daily Telegraph’s Annette Sharp. 
Other notable April Fools Day pranks included Google who “launched” Google Nose which the company presented as “the new scentsation in search.”
The video even offers the ability to smell a ghost (yeah…) and it even offered a trial all you had to do was put your nose up to the computer and sniff…
Not surprisingly we imagine many people had to click the need help function.
Meanwhile, Google’s video sharing site YouTube was also in on the act, announcing in a memetastic video that it is to close for the next ten years while it picks a winner from the videos uploaded so far.
Back home Telstra were copying a bit of flak over its April 1 promotion.
It seems the market for $50 Telstra 24 x 7 app slippers isn’t as big as you’d expect.
Also this print advertisement on page 5 of The Australian from the, previously unheard of, “Australian Bureau of Motorways” is worth a mention. The ad announces temporary lane restrictions nationally with special right hand lanes for “the exclusive use of BMW vehicles”.
Click to enlarge image
We’d also like to acknowledge The Courier (from Ballarat) which had a prank similar to our own. Announcing their publication would move to an “ultra compact size” in order to compete with mobiles…
Finally we have to acknowledge TV writer and freelance journalist Amanda Meade who is known for her April Fools pranks (anyone remember the time she cancelled Playschool?).
Meade this morning decided to launch this salvo at Ten’s Biggest Loser: 
The tweet quickly caused a stir online with her 14,000 followers and saw Ten and Shine publicity receive calls about it. Meade tells Mumbrella she was also contacted by other outlets wanting to confirm the yarn.
Ten’s PR were quick to correct the record with not one, not two but three tweets. 
Meade also confirmed the prank after 12pm and said it was a comment on the risks associated with the show. 
Nic Christensen
well if they were only copying that bit of flak it’s probably OK
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Hilarious that Amanda Meade based her AF joke on the French Survivor program, which indeed did cancel filming due to a contestant dying last week.
Even funnier that the on-set Dr committed suicide apparently due to media pressure about the contestants death.
Ah, the LOL’s…
I’m not sure what Amanda meant when she claimed she wrote the joke to highlight the dangers of show…
So, if a contestant DOES suffer a heart attack during shooting of ABL next season, I guess Amanda can say, “Well I joked about this back in April”.
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