Marketing Practice :Why fooling customers is a bad idea !

Google's April Fool joke -Mic Drop's epic failure throw some lessons for marketers. The most obvious lesson is " Think hard before fooling customers". If Google which had been doing this April Fool joke for a while can land up in trouble, you can see the risk involved in pranking customers. 

Many brands have hopped in the bandwagon of getting the cool quotient. Humor is the most obvious route to building the cool quotient. But often brands gets edgy and then burn its fingers. In the case of Google, surprisingly the brand failed to understand the risk of such a venture. Yesterday I also saw the mic-drop button on my gmail. As a fan of the brand,I trust anything that comes from Google and will not think much before trying it out. Luckily I was too lazy yesterday to click on the button. Things would have been embarrassing since my official mail is linked to gmail. 

I think brands should resist the temptation to look cool at all cost. When there's a matter of Brand Trust, coolness quotient should take the backseat. 

Having said that, it takes lots of courage for a brand to be humorous and mistakes do happen. The mantra I choose about brand humor would be-When in doubt, be serious.