How Indian Companies Celebrated April Fool’s Day

Bart Eshwar

Taking a cue from their global counterparts like Google and Amazon who have played elaborate pranks on their customers and audiences for April Fools, Indian companies too joined the party this year with hilarious setups for the occasion. Here are some on the best April Fools pranks that were seen on the Indian corporate scene.

 

1. Ola

This prank began early in the morning of April Fool’s day, when  Ola sent out the following tweet announcing the revolutionary concept of OlaAir – a helicopter cab service.

 

The rest of twitter joined in with gusto, with people joining in on the joke. 

 

Ola wasn’t done quite yet. There was some playful banter with other startups too. 

 

TaxiForSure, which was recently bought by Ola for $200 million, also got in on the action.

2. Zomato

Another company that’s often in the news for its quirky promotional campaigns, Zomato launched Zomatcho for April Fools, a service that it claimed would help single, lonely people find love by bonding with their would-be partners over food. “Using a proprietary algorithm that takes into account your known dining behaviour based on the way you use Zomato, as well as a couple of other parameters (let’s just call it magic, because we can’t reveal anything more), the app helps match you with people you’re most compatible with, food-wise.”, the press release cheekily said. 

 

 

3. Allen Solly

Clothing retailer Allen Solly changed the colours of its clothes to some ludicrous combinations and asked people to guess  what the original colours of its wardrobe were.

 

 

4. Freecharge

Freecharge launched Buzzkill, what it claimed was a revolutionary new app that detects mosquitos using a “heat signature” and drives them away. It also claimed to provide FreeCharge credits for all the mosquitos that users chase away, terming this as “social work”. Now there’s a company that truly understands its market. 

 

5. Inmobi

Bangalore based mobile ad platform Inmobi chose to diversify from its core product, saying that it wanted to invest in craft beweries to provide cheaper beer to developers around the world. 

6. Amazon

Amazon India came up with a product that claimed to solve the biggest grooming problem that Indian men face – how to maintain a stately moustache. It might look ridiculous, but you’d expect this to be widely adopted if it could work.