Can Google's "Mic Drop" Mishap Please Be The End Of Branded April Fools Pranks?

There was only 1 time that I can actually remember enjoying April Fools, and that was last year when I was the Program Manager on the team that did the viral April Fools campaign "Selfie Shoes." I have to admit, it was pretty awesome to have something that I worked on with a great team literally blow up and spread all over the world. 

If you haven't seen it:

Other than that, April Fools is a day where I literally cannot stand to be online, which says a lot coming from me - a person who is connected and sharing 24/7. (I am a digital marketer, after all.) I try not to look at Tweets, read any online articles, and I turn off the TV news because, let's be honest, most of the pranks are lame. (And don't get me started on the broader issue of people who can't critically read a headline and deduce that it's satire - not journalism's finest day.)

Anyway, I can say I've been on both sides of April Fools: the Fooler and the (well...kind of) "Foolee." So, I feel like I'm justified in saying: SCREW YOU GOOGLE. 

For April Fools, Google launched the "Mic Drop" functionality that would let you send a GIF of a Minion dropping a mic so that you would never hear from you recipient again:

Ok, I don't know about you, but I took Google's explanation as a joke that I believed it was - harmless. So I sent it, as a joke, to the girl who I had just interviewed for an internship at my company whom I really liked. We ended up talking about going to workout together after we GSD (got shit done) and I felt like she had a great sense of humour and would enjoy the GIF. I of course, followed up with a "haha, just wanted to check out this April Fools thing, but I'll be in touch soon."

It wasn't until several hours later, at family dinner, that my uncle told me people at Google were getting fired over this because, not only did this functionality archive the conversation, but it MUTED IT. AKA, it blocked the recipient and there was no way to undo it. I frantically searched for the email thread and I could not find it in my sent box. I then went to my personal email and shot off a quick (yet sheepish) email saying "hey, just want to make sure you got my last email" and included a link to an article ripping Google on their mishap. A few hours after that, I got a response from the applicant and the original email appeared by in my sent box (I don't know if I had just missed it the first time, out of panic, or if Google had fixed it. Who knows.) I just hope she still wants to work with me. 

You know why "Selfie Shoes" worked? Well, yeah, it was a ridiculous concept that people kind-of-sort-of wished they owned, but really, it worked because it was a new product that did not alter the way the customer used an existing product that they knew, loved, and trusted. Google, on the other hand, snuck into our emails, changed functionality, and didn't even properly explain the consequences of it. 

I hope that this is a lesson learned, not only for Google, but for all brands. We get it, you want to be "cool and hip" and you want your target customer to buy your products/services because they connect with you. There are many ways to do that other than by pranking us. Trust me. 

Maybe it's time we say, "thanks, but no thanks," to this day on the calendar. Maybe it's time we accept that it's 2016 and that we no longer need a day to pull-one-over each other. Maybe we realize that the internet has enough nonsense on it already, and that we love it just the way it is. 

Want to talk digital marketing? jess@insocial.ca