Entertainment

April Fool’s Day 2017: 10 Best Pranks & Hoaxes

By Grace

Posted on April 3, 2017

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With April 1^st – which fell on a Saturday this year – safely over our heads by now, we’ll be doing a roundup of the ten best pranks played by companies on their unsuspecting (or gullible) loyal consumers. Actually, some were sharp enough to detect 💩 right away.

 

Durian-flavoured Ribena

First off, we have Singapore’s favourite cordial, Ribena thrust into the limelight when the company manufacturing Ribena smelled an opportunity on April Fools’ Day this year to post a picture on their Facebook account featuring a ‘lightly sparkling’ Ribena Durian drink, which is a mash of two flavours – Durian and blackcurrant.

Ribena is no stranger to flavour mash-ups, having previously introduced a slew of special flavours such as orange and guava Ribena, passionfruit and pineapple Ribena, strawberry Ribena, and lemon Ribena. However, the Durian Ribena is just their way of joking with their dear and loyal consumers, some of whom might just lap it up while others cannot even begin to fathom the idea of durian mixing with blackcurrant.

 

Amazon Launching in Singapore

 

With such a realistic looking screenshot of what the homepage of Amazon Singapore would resemble, Malaysian online shopping firm iPrice sent out a press release on Friday, 31^st March 2017 – the eve of April Fools’ Day – announcing to media outlets that Amazon is looking to launch in Singapore and Malaysia. It even included a Singapore-themed ‘Amazon Merlion Echo Dot’, priced at SGD67.90, in the teaser. It successfully pulled off the hoax when several news outlets fell for the ruse, publishing reports on Amazon’s supposed launch respectively.

 

Ikea’s “Press-play-ground”

Ikea’s announcement on Facebook that it would be transforming its Småland in-store kids’ playground into a “press-play-ground” – a place full of child-sized sitting pods with tablets for kids to press their tiny fingers on – caused a furore among parents, many of whom thought it was for real and continued to deride the move that seeks to increase screen time for their precious tots, harming their eyes. Hilarious indeed, the responses were!

 

Arsene Wenger To Coach Young Nee Soon Footballers

Politicians were no exceptions when it came to playing a prank or two on April Fools’ Day. Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam got into the mood for a joke and posted on his Facebook page stating: “As a long-suffering Arsenal fan, I’m very happy to announce today that Arsene Wenger has agreed to become the new coach for the Nee Soon Football and Study Programme. Fandi Ahmad, who has been helping us, has agreed to this.”

Further down in the same post, he added that it was indeed written all in name of good fun on this April Fools’ Day but highlighted that the Nee Soon football-and-study programme was not a joke – it is a genuine programme that has been helping underprivileged youths to excel in both studies and football as a sporting activity.

 

Google’s Ms. Pac-man Maps

Google, as a whole with all its subsidiaries, is no stranger to going all out with all its April Fools’ jokes and more. This year, we got a rehash of one from 2015 when the Google Maps iOS/Android apps were turned into a playable game of Ms. Pac-man at the press of a button on your phones.

 

Airbnb’s Humanless Host

For its April Fools’ joke this year, Airbnb introduced their newest offering in the form of a humanless host named Brandon. The Humanless Host, in their words, “is able to bridge the gap between technology and humans” and capable of using its finger to recharge your smartphone. Good for times when you just don’t have any access to a portable charger.

 

McDonald’s Micro Mac

SourceWhat’s a dieter gonna eat when craving for a Big Mac yet unable to reach out for one due to fear of busting calorie-count? The answer is simple! McDonald’s has claimed to have invented the Micro Mac and is introducing it to the world, launching it on 1^st April 2017 onwards. Ha, for those who believed it, you can look at the picture above a few more times to seek some solace and comfort yourself with the Real McCoy – the Big Mac.

 

Auntie Anne’s Logo Change

Fact is, millennials make up a huge chunk of many businesses’ customer base in these recent years. Auntie Anne’s spared no expense in trying to connect with hipster millennials and their Snapchat filters by ditching the halo from their logo on top of its famed pretzel. In place of the halo is now the Instagram-made-famous flower crown that can be found in every indie music festival goer’s selfie taken during the past two years. Traditionalists will be comforted to know that the flower crown move isn’t a permanent fixture.

 

Duolingo’s Emoji Course

How would the parents and grandparents of millennials communicate with them if not by enrolling themselves in Duolingo’s Emoji language course? Purportedly the world’s first and perhaps – one and only – Emoji course, it claims to teach you the fundamentals of everything in emoji speak. No longer will you have to type out words anymore. If only this was true.

 

ezbuy’s Permanent Cessation of Free Agent Fee

Many ezbuy shoppers look forward to and deeply love ezbuy’s Free Agent Fee promotions to the core and could not believe their eyes when ezbuy notified them via Facebook that Free Agent Fee promotions will no longer be rolled out due to management’s decision. They took to sharing the post to vehemently protest the move. And we’re glad to inform them that it was just an April Fools’ hoax.

In fact, we’re presenting to you a whole month of Free Agent Fee (FAF) to celebrate our one year anniversary of rebranding. ezbuy fans, we hear you rejoicing! Time for you to let loose of your wallet and go crazy shopping – to take full advantage of your wildly beloved FAF promotion!

For the widest variety of products, go onto ezbuy.sg to discover for yourself now!