Is Marketing On April Fool’s Day Fool’s Gold Or Worth The Effort?

Another April 1 has come and gone and we’ve got a few questions. Were you fooled? Were you amused?

And most importantly for marketers who targeted the day:

Was it worth it?

Certainly, it’s one way for brands to show customers that they have a sense of humor. And you can argue that giving employees a chance to stretch their imaginations is a valuable exercise.

But the AFD playing field is getting so crowded that we wonder whether the costs are worth the benefits. The April Fool’s flood now starts in late March as anyone paying attention during the past few days knows. You can see samples from Marketing Land and our sister site Search Engine Land here, here and here and a good roundup up from AdWeek here.

Google, the reigning champion of the day, produced at least 17 hoaxes this year, down from its high of 22 in 2011, according the Wikipedia page that documents the company’s tomfoolery. According to the page, since 2008 Google has never authored fewer than 14 AFD hoaxes.

(For the record we truly do wish that Google Fiber’s Coffee for the Home wasn’t fake. It’s also an example of an effective AFD campaign, a reminder that this particular Google product is remarkable in its own right.)

But Google’s special. What about mere mortal brands?

Bonnie Bailly, marketing director for social media analytics provider Digimind, believes they can benefit by joining the fray … as long as they do funny right.

“Those pranks that rise to the surface are genuinely funny, and don’t take themselves too seriously, in effect spoofing your own company and product like Google Maps did so well this year,” Bailly wrote in an email. “Another one I admire is NY-based grocery delivery service Fresh Direct, who spoofed a new offering, eagle caught salmon, harvested in the wilds of upstate New York. This worked because it pokes fun at the tastes of its customer base, many of whom are into organic and local food, and also makes fun of its own selection.”

The story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri killer

Technically, Cortana isn’t supposed to exist for at least another 500 years, but that’s not stopping Microsoft from bringing her to life this week. While Apple has Siri and Google has Google Now — both digital assistants that run on smartphones — Microsoft is taking an approach that mixes the best of the competition with its own unique take. Based on a 26th-century artificially intelligent character in the Halo video game series, Cortana will debut as part of Windows Phone 8.1, the next big update for Microsoft’s mobile operating system.

By learning your habits and interests continuously, Cortana is positioned as a personal digital assistant that helps you organize your day-to-day activities, alongside regular web searches for information. Cortana will act as the primary way to discover and search for information on Windows Phone 8.1, or just an assistant to manage your meetings, reminders, and daily life. She’s smart and witty, all while being designed to closely resemble a human assistant. With the competition already years ahead, Cortana arrives at a time when Microsoft is focused on catching up in mobile. Cortana is a significant new feature for Windows Phone 8.1, one that has been in development for more than two years. In many ways, Microsoft’s bold new mobile efforts rest on her virtual shoulders. This is the story of Cortana, and how she came to be.

The name started from a simple suggestion from Windows Phone program manager Robert Howard in an early planning meeting. "It was just a codename, it stuck," explains Marcus Ash, group program manager of Windows Phone. "We didn't intend for it to be the actual product name from the beginning." The fact Cortana exists simply as Cortana, and not some marketing buzz like "Microsoft Personal Digital Assistant Home Premium" is surprising given Microsoft’s history of naming products. Up until a few weeks ago, it was hit and miss whether Cortana would be the final name. It could have been Naomi, Alyx, or a number of other suggestions, but leaks and a petition to use the Cortana name helped sway Microsoft’s decision.

VOICE ACTRESS JEN TAYLOR IS THE VOICE OF CORTANA

The Cortana naming and background is linked directly to Halo, and meshes well with Microsoft’s main goal for the product: recreate a real personal assistant without being too creepy. Cortana was always there for Master Chief in the Halo games, and now she’s always there for you on your phone, but only if you want her to be. Rival services like Google Now dig deep into data from devices, and while that’s often useful it can also be irritating in the form of non-stop notifications, or just scary that the system knows so much about you. To avoid this, Microsoft spoke to a number of high-level personal assistants — yes, actual humans — and found one that kept a notebook with all the key information and interests of the person they had to look after.

CORTANA HAS A NOTEBOOK, JUST LIKE A REAL ASSISTANT

That simple idea inspired Microsoft to create a virtual "Notebook" for Cortana which stores personal information and anything that’s approved for Cortana to see and use. It’s not a privacy control panel, per se, but a list of everything Cortana knows about you. "It’s her view of you, but clearly you can just snatch it from her at any time and say ‘That’s not right, I don’t want you to know this’ or ‘I’m not comfortable with you reading my email,’" explains Ash. "So you have complete control over what she knows and she’s transparent about it." Entries in the Notebook are stored in the cloud, and you can share contact information with it, as well as your interests, home and work locations, and more. The notion of Cortana acting as a personal assistant with a notebook— as opposed to a creepy stalker — has been drilled into the team from the beginning, they say. She also operates and functions by learning your habits and interests from your phone use, location, and communications. You can speak to Cortana or just input text, but she’ll always ask you before she stores any information she finds in her Notebook.

CORTANA WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT THE POWER OF MICROSOFT'S BING PLATFORM
"The vision behind what we’re doing here is that this intelligence can expand beyond Windows Phone," explains Bing director Stefan Weitz. But where exactly Microsoft will take Cortana in the future is still largely a mystery. Third-party apps will be able to integrate with the service, allowing users to simply say, "Hulu, show me the latest episode of Modern Family" and the app will launch with the latest episode, rather like the way voice search works on Xbox. Combined with the reminders, it’s an example of how useful and powerful speech is when it’s done right.


Microsoft has seen what Apple and Google have done, wrapping some of the best ideas from Siri and Google Now into one attractive, easy-to-use interface — but now, the real trick will be to leverage Xbox, Windows, and Microsoft’s other products to get Cortana everywhere. The Bing home page will be updated in the coming weeks with notifications and information displayed in Live Tiles, personalized for each user, perhaps a small sign of things to come. The company has an always-on microphone in millions of houses through Kinect, hundreds of millions of computers running Windows, and a healthy new attitude toward iOS. For now, Cortana lives in your pocket, but her voice might soon be everywhere.