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You may have seen that Richard Branson – a notorious April Fools’ prankster – announced much earlier today from Australia that he’s moving his company, the Virgin Group, U.S. operations, and a section of its U.K. operations to Branson, Mo., home of his “great-great-uncle, Reuben S. Branson.” As he claims on the Virgin website Ruben Branson founded the town of Branson, and so he too will settle into the town, bringing with him a direct route from San Francisco to Branson, Mo. Virgin America, Virgin Hotels, Virgin Mobile USA and every other lifestyle extension of the brand will follow.  

Image by Richard Kelland https://www.flickr.com/photos/rkelland/ used under CC license.

While it’s easy to imagine Richard Branson and his communications team chuckling as they drafted the post, the joke comes with harsh criticism from the residents of economically-depressed Branson, mostly directed toward Branson Mayor Reanne Presley for “endorsing” the prank. It’s a calculated risk. For Virgin, the social and media recognition for being the first April Fools’ prank of the year undoubtedly outweighs the risk of alienating Branson residents from the Virgin brand.

April Fool’s Day is a revered holiday for marketers that have a funny bone. We all love to see what brands will pull off the best pranks. It’s a good chance to be creative and off beat, and to put things in perspective with a little levity. Who can forget the left-handed Whopper, Gmail Tap, P&G’s Bacon Mouthwash, or American Eagle’s skinny, skinny jeans?

But before you execute your April Fool’s prank, assess carefully. As an office jester myself, some of us have learned the hard way that one person’s humor is not always shared by others.

Even the venerable New York Times fell victim to pranksters...twice.

Yesterday was April 1st, a prankster’s dream day to pull all the pranks he/she wanted and get away with it. Whether it was an innocent lie or a grand scheme that involved multiple months of planning, it’s a day to laugh at yourself, poke fun of one another and basically have fun. In today’s marketing and PR world, it seems these pranksters can even get their companies to get in on the joke.

Yesterday, IDC bought Forrester (SageCircle takes credit for this), Starbucks decided to sell new sizes, Plenta (128 fl oz) and Micra (2 fl oz), Google changed its name to Topeka and tween start Justin Bieber took over FunnyorDie.com.