On April 1st 2013 YouTube released a video indicating that since its inception it had been a video competition all along and on April 1st 2013 at midnight is when the competition ended. At this time all videos on YouTube would be deleted and after a review of all video submissions they would release the winner in 10 years.
Now, clearly this is completely unreasonable and the video is quite sarcastic to say the least, but why do companies do this? Youtube is not the only company to pull a stunt like this. Google, YouTube’s owner, also has fooled Google users on April Fools, take “Google Nose,” for example.
What benefit does this actually bring to the company other than a laugh or too? I think that consumers often merely use tools like Google and YouTube with such ignorance of what is happening behind the scenes. Stunts like these give companies a chance to say “we are people who like to have fun too!” It really gets people to start to connect more with the brand. Blogs and social networks explode with chatter about the crazy April fools prank that a company just did and helps raise brand awareness. It gets people to go check it out for themselves while immersing themselves in the service itself.
Yes, consumers are happy with the interaction they experience but is this creating value for companies like Google and YouTube? I think it is, services like Google and YouTube are no longer simply search engines but they are viewed as more interactive services that want to interact with their customers. Simply put, they are more alive.