One of the best April Fools’ Day jokes of the year.
The execution on this was so good that it caused some mass blogosphere confusion before being outed on The Today Show and Good Morning America this morning as an April Fools’ Day gag.
This clever marketing stunt gained Miz Mooz mass coverage on both national publications and social media. It’s a perfect example of how reactive public relations can propel brand awareness.
We approached our longtime client, Miz Mooz (shout out to Ron and Cheryl), to develop an April Fools Day campaign and prepared them for our out there ideas.
To get started, Spark Growth brought in creative freelancer and video maker Jordan Pick to develop a viral campaign. Two days later, he woke up with a vision: Selfie Shoes. After working with the company for almost 3 years, we knew they’d be on board. The goals were clear – spread brand awareness to millennials about their stylish, functional shoes, and get email addresses to drive new customers.
Miz Mooz immediately approved and we created one of the biggest April Fool’s campaigns of 2015. With just one month of lead time and a small budget.
Here’s what we did.
To get started, Spark Growth brought in creative freelancer and video maker Jordan Pick to develop a viral campaign. Two days later, he woke up with a vision: Selfie Shoes.
The Miz Mooz team loved the idea and we were off to the races! We held team concept development meetings to strategically build out the campaign – making sure it would have a business impact on Miz Mooz.
The Spark Growth team defined the campaign goals, the target audience, and the tactics we’d need to execute on (landing pages, email capture, email marketing campaign, PR, video, social media campaign and ads)
After two weeks of pre-production and finalizing the selfie shoe prototype, Jordan and his film crew team shot the #SelfieShoes video one sunny weekend in Brooklyn.
We finalized the design and development of all campaign assets, and did final testing across the email campaign, landing page with email capture, and social media and homepage graphics.
Final touches were put on the campaign video, and then it was posted on YouTube and leaked to press (many of whom thought the #SelfieShoes were a real product!).
We finalized the additional version in Chinese to launch in that market.
Once we confirmed an appearance on The Today Show and were featured on CNN’s homepage, we began ramping up the Miz Mooz site to handle the extra traffic!
The April Fool’s ‘Reveal’ landing page was launched in the afternoon of April 1 along with the revised email capture campaign offering savings on Miz Mooz shoes.
We reached out on social media to key influencers and target customers encouraging them to share the video.
Once the campaign “tipped” our team heavily monitored the press and social mentions surrounding the #SelfieShoes, engaging with the audience and driving traffic back to the website.
Previous 7 days.
Week of March 30th to April 6th.
Online Conversion
Website Visits
Dramatic rise over three days: pre-launch, launch, and post-launch.
A photo posted by Spark Growth (@sparkgrowth) on
Is the #MizMooz selfie shoe real? Or did we just prank @KathieLGifford & @hodakotb? APRIL FOOLS! pic.twitter.com/r6vlTpJrnZ
— Kathie Lee and Hoda (@klgandhoda) April 1, 2015
Love @mizMooz #selfieshoes @EricaFOX5 & I made our own with duct tape! #shoefie #shofie Lol! pic.twitter.com/GaFFmbVCs6
— RaoulFOX5 (@RaoulFOX5) April 1, 2015
@laurie_melissa How bout your write about the ridiculousness that is this product… http://t.co/PgrzBrFTSJ #SelfieShoes #BrokenCoccyx
— Mario Partenope (@bffive) May 13, 2015
LOL!! Seriously asking, which one is the best #prank of the year? via @MizMooz @animaxasiatv @HANI_EXID pic.twitter.com/LUZFoFVq2o
— Janice Lu (@iamjanice601) April 2, 2015
So excited! Watch the full video on YouTube! #selfieshoes #selfie #shofie
A video posted by Miz Mooz (@mizmooz) on
Just seen in #NYC… #selfieshoes pic.twitter.com/fjX6iBvJVr
— Spark Growth (@SparkGrowth) April 10, 2015