April Fools Day is not just a chance for you to throw a cup of water on your sleeping brother. It also offers brands and organizations the opportunity to generate some awareness online with a well thought out joke.

Perhaps it’s a new product, like Honda Canda’s “Polite Horn”:

Sometimes brands will go down a more controversial route – Scottish beverage brand Irn Bru is really going for it this year.

It’s potentially a slippery slope for brands, who must tread the balance between wanting to go viral and not straying too far from their established corporate voice.

Will the branded pranks of 2019 succeed among the rest of the chatter?

Our methodology around finding the top 10 is a mix – we looked at online conversations around April Fools Day campaigns to find the most shared pranks and jokes within that conversation. We also searched more widely for campaigns that were being announced but didn’t specifically mention April Fools. Mention counts were correct at the time of writing.

The top shared April Fools pranks of 2019

10. Starbucks Pupbucks (700 mentions)

If my dog Nelly is anyone to go by, dogs love coffee. Therefore, Starbucks’ new concept store that is just for dogs seems like a great idea…

And Starbucks aren’t the only ones using dogs to get their retweets on this list!

9. LEGO: Find my brick (nearly 1k mentions)

You know when you’re building something really intricate and you reach down for the part you need and it’s just not there?

LEGO’s got your back, and have announced the “Find my brick” app:

8. A throwback from BBC Sport (1,300 mentions)

A lot of the April Fools Day conversation seems to be nostalgic, and this clip from 1989 will definitely still get a laugh.

7. McDonald’s announce milkshake sauce pots (1,400 mentions)

Ever dipped your fries in your strawberry milkshake?

No? You haven’t lived!

McDonald’s UK have announced tiny versions of their famous shakes available for pouring all over your fries, generating 1.4k retweets. McDonalds USA followed not long after.

6. Ubisoft’s For Honor + Rabbids event (1,700 mentions)

Ubisoft’s unleashing Rabbids on their For Honor game for one day only in this April Fools Day event:

5. Formula 1: Dogs in cars (2,100 mentions)

Who doesn’t love dogs?

F1 knew they couldn’t go wrong with pooches, and they’ve got plenty of people sharing their April Fools video:

4. Tinder’s new height verification (2,400 mentions)

Tinder’s promised to bring some honesty back into dating by telling people off if they exaggerate about their height.

3. Brexit (4,400 mentions)

Brexit was mentioned in thousands of April Fools Day comments online, with many suggesting that the last two years of Brexit coverage has been an elaborate prank – the UK is not leaving the European Union, it was all a joke.

This is not the case, although the 6 million people who signed a petition to revoke Article 50 and remain in the EU recently would probably celebrate if it was.

2. SOPE (41,000+ mentions)

Forgive my k-pop ignorance here – I had to go down a rabbit hole.

Sope (the friends S/uga and J-H/ope) who are both members of BTS, and have taken over the BTS_twt Twitter account and are doing all kinds of kooky things (e.g. posting a picture of BTS member Jin holding a huge black tiger prawn).

 

This is the the biggest part of the conversation online that mentions April Fools Day and it’s trending all over the place on Twitter.

1. Nintendo Japan make Kirby square (40,000 mentions)

If you’re not a Nintendo fan this might not mean anything to you, but the famously pink and round character has been transformed into a pink and square character.

While this may sound inconsequential to some, it’s drummed up a huge amount of online hype, with some 40k retweets on this alone:

 

I’m not sure if Kirby will be forever square from now on, but even if it’s just for today Nintendo have done a great job of gaining attention.

It’s a mad world

Many took to social to comment on how April Fools’ Day isn’t really needed this year, since there’s so much crazy news out there already.

For example:

Elon Musk is known for having a quirky sense of humor and an unrelenting desire to get things done. Just ahead of April Fools Day, Musk combined these two attributes and released an incredibly catchy tune of questionable quality.

It’s called RIP Harambe.

If you’ve been a Brandwatch blog reader for a while you may remember our previous coverage of Harambe – namely, things people say Harambe would have loved. Sadly, whether or not he would have loved this song is a question we may never know the answer to.

Meanwhile, a Twitter spat between Jim Carrey and Mussolini’s granddaughter has really undermined April Fools’ Day for some.

I dread to think what next year’s political landscape will mean for April Fools Day 2020.