April Fools has come and gone with some good virtual laughs to be had. Over the years April 01 has become increasingly popular as a day to show that companies too have a sense of humour, and each year it seems there are more companies joining the fun by using the Internet as a medium for employees and netizens both to share some laughs over a good old joke. Despite the lightheartedness of the jokes, these activities are highly effective from an adverting standpoint as well, garnering significant amounts of attention for what is effectively a (relatively) cheaply produced backslapper. If you consider how much it would cost to attract the same amount of attention using traditional means, April Fools “Jokevertisements” make a whole lot of sense, particularly when they are strategic about how they employ your attention.

People like to have fun on the Internet, and there’s no reason why companies can’t share in, and benefit, from acting a little less serious every once and a while – it makes them personable and less robot-like in the eyes of the public. They key factor may be that on April Fools, people in general expect others to joke around, and so are primed towards a positive response when encountering a prank, rather than criticism. In the same way it’s accepted that you can dress up in a silly costume on Halloween and not be ostricized for it, April Fools is a stamp of endorsement for companies to have some fun…and benefit from it. Netizens enjoy a website that has personality, because they often identify to a certain extent with their favourite websites – and when a website has personality, then the internalization is that YOU have personality. Marketing impressions goes up, and I suspect loyalty goes up too because the “entertainment” at your hangout was pretty good – they came through.

So without further adieu, my top 3 favourite April Fools 2009 “Jokevertisements.”

3. Reddigg Redesign – Best Strategic Jokevertisement

This was clever. Popular social aggregator, Reddit.com, redesigned its interface to be a copy of competitor, Digg.com. What’s important to understand here is that the Internet abounds with fanboyism – people like to associate with the websites they frequent and will often disassociate with other sites for the same reason. Ingroup vs Outgroup. Given that Reddit and Digg are competitors it’s pretty funny that they would be willing to cast themselves in the shadow of Digg. However there’s also another effect in my mind, which is that of reinforcing Reddit’s ingroup loyalty among its readers – its funny but it also elicits a “yeah right” response from people.  The Reddit staff also left this note: “Note: If for some reason, you think that this new interface is lame — a result of your poor taste and lack of foresight, you can (for now) head over to http://classic.reddit.com and get the legacy Reddit interface. We cannot make you be less ignorant, philistine.”

2. YouTube Flip – Best Interactive Jokevertisement

Go to any YouTube video and in the URL append the text “&flip=1″ and hit enter. Flip-o-matic. What I really like about this is that it’s both very interesting, and interactive – the combination that you want to generate word of mouth and activity. People will tell or even show their friends this because it’s original, unexpected, entertaining and anyone can do it. “YouTube is cool!”

1. Expedia Flights to Mars – Best Business Related Jokevertisement

This was very well done, with a slick website showcasing flights to Mars for $99, including a Mars themed graphical interface, video and media, as well as a page of fun tourist activities to partake in once you make it over. The fact that Expedia put so much effort into making the site look real and fun, gives the impression that they care about you having fun – an impression that I suspect customers or potential customers might maintain when considering Expedia for their real travel activities. The other aspect of this prank that I like is that it relates to Expedia’s core business activities so it is more memorable, and once you’re viewing the Mars travel page, you can still access the rest of the Expedia website, meaning all that buzz and linking going on around the webosphere is likely to convert to real website clicks and travel bookings – win win.

Honourable mention goes to Flickr’s smellr (above) for making me laugh with the name of Facebook founder’s ‘cologne.’ Those are my favourites – share your own!