It’s April Fools’ Day, and you know what that means: Corporate pranks, faux product launches, and outlandish marketing stunts.
You may notice a number of odd, interesting, or too-good-to-be-true announcements from companies. From strange food items to an AI dog translator, corporations aren’t shying away from pranking consumers.
Company gags don’t always go over well. For example, German automaker Volkswagen published its April Fools’ joke too soon in 2021, leading to many believing it would rebrand as “Voltswagen” in the US. However, those who keep it lighthearted, timely, and slightly outlandish can get away with laughs instead of serious repercussions.
Here’s a look at some of the most noteworthy ones Business Insider saw this year:
ElevenLabs
Many pet owners would love to know what their pet is thinking. Voice cloning AI startup ElevenLabs teased a new model that would make their wish come true.
The company announced Text to Bark on Tuesday, describing it as a new era of “cross-species communication.” With the technology, ElevenLabs said humans and dogs can communicate by translating their words and barks into each other’s language.
ElevenLabs allows users to recreate a person’s voice from a recording using its AI tools.
Lipton
Drinks brand Lipton got a head start on April Fools’ Day this year, which made its announcement actually seem plausible since no one expected a prank two weeks ahead of schedule. In mid-March, the brand posted on social media that it would be discontinuing its popular peach iced tea flavor — to fans’ great disappointment. Fortunately, the flavor is sticking around.
Yahoo
This one’s for every chronically online person who’s been told to touch grass. The Yahoo Agricultural Interface is a computer keyboard with little tufts of grass on every key.
Yahoo says they go on sale at 1 p.m. ET Tuesday in its TikTok Shop; we’ll see if that pans out.
Crunch
Crunch Bar, the chocolate bar with crisped rice inside, dared to ask, “What if we cooked the rice instead so the bar was quieter to eat?” And thus was born its fictitious 75%-quieter chocolate bar.
Bluesky
Bluesky, a social media rival to X, told users that it would slash its character limit from 300 to 299 for Tuesday only.
“We’re listening to your feedback and updating the character count for posts on Bluesky,” the company said in its jokey announcement.
Duolingo and Carnival Cruise Line
The language-learning app and the cruise line collaborated on their prank this year. They’re fake-offering the Duolingo World Cruise, a 5-year cruise across 7 continents and 195 countries that promises to give cruise-goers opportunities to learn more than 40 languages.
Olipop and Hidden Valley Ranch
Another collab, this time between buzzy prebiotic soda brand Olipop and Hidden Valley Ranch, involves a new faux lineup of various ranch-flavored soft drinks. They come in regular ranch, jalapeño ranch, garlic ranch, and hot honey ranch. While the flavors aren’t real, the brands apparently sent content creators actual cans of Olipop wrapped in the fake ranch packaging to get people talking about it.
Nothing Company
Smartphone maker Nothing debuted headphones with a 50-meter, or 54-yard, cable and 3.5-millimeter jack. The product is simply called “ear.”
“Beautifully Inconvenient” appears to be the tagline for the fake product. Nothing hasn’t specifically said it’s not happening, but one has to wonder about the logistics of carrying more than half a football field’s worth of cable.
Subway
Buttermilk ranch water, anyone? That’s one of the new alcoholic products that sandwich chain Subway is advertising on April 1. In an Instagram post, Subway announced “new saucy spirits” in the flavors “Buttermilk ranch water” and “Bloody Marynara.”
“can’t wait to get home and crack open a can of Buttermilk Ranch Water,” the caption said.
IKEA
IKEA is working on “a store that it is impossible to get lost in.” The linear store would stretch roughly 2 km, or about 1.25 miles, and is a response to concerns about shoppers getting lost inside the Swedish furniture brand’s massive and labyrinthine stores.
Tic Tac and Dr Pepper
The mint and soda brands teamed up on this gag creation of Dr Pepper-flavored mints, with the fake Tic Tacs even adopting the look of the soda cans.
Some announcements are the real deal
Popeyes is rolling out a limited-time lineup of pickle-themed items at participating locations across the US. It appears the idea started as a social media joke and turned into a real promotion after it was announced.
“What started as a playful social tease has now become a full-fledged culinary reality—a Pickled Popeyes,” Bart LaCount, chief marketing officer for Popeyes US and Canada, said in a press release.
And for today only, Dunkin’ is offering a free coffee or cold brew in any size with promo code ThisIsNotAJoke. One per customer, no purchase necessary, available Tuesday until the code redemption limit is reached.
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