April Fools

No, this is not an April fool’s post, considering its about five days late.

I just wanted to blog about how fun it was reading articles on April 1st by big companies like Google and Starbucks. Google came up with something called along the lines of “Google Motion”, where the article stated that you could “pose” or use body motions to control Gmail… through your computer’s webcam. Starbucks, on the other hand, wrote an article called “Starbucks Mobile Pour”, where they said they would have an App on smartphones for customers to use when they needed coffee. You’d send a request, and a Barista would be zipping through the city on a scooter (not the motorized one…), and deliver you a fresh coffee anywhere.

Asides from the fun my friend and I had tricking someone into using Google Motion, I think these two articles were a great example of the use of social media and the internet to spark some fun interest in the company. You expect a lot of companies, especially the larger ones to be conservative and safe when it comes to public relations, but these two companies, in my opinion, did a good job having fun and making it seem like their companies did things out of the ordinary, ordinarily. Good brand image, at least for people who like to have a couple laughs.