Get your fingers in better shape for Chrome

Are your hands too fat to keep up with Google Chrome? Don't order a typing wand. Get on a Chromercise fitness program, and whip your flabby fingers back into shape. Or you can just get some of those snazzy workout gloves, it's up to you. This whole idea—rolled out Friday by BBH New York for April Fools' Day—was probably funnier on paper, and it goes on a bit too long, but credit where it's due for committing to the concept. Plus, it wouldn't surprise me if hand models actually did stuff like this, so it might be more legitimate than it appears.

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Advertisers out in force for April Fools' Day

It's time for the annual roundup of April Fools' Day advertising stunts. April Fools' Day is the only day of the year when serious brands can have a little fun without hurting their messaging. For brands who already have a sense of humor, it's almost required. So, here's a brief selection of just a few of today's shenanigans.
  • In a clear swipe at Microsoft's Kinect, Google has introduced Gmail Motion, a way to compose and send email using your body as a controller. Google says it's also hiring autocompleters to populate the autocomplete searches. And for you font nuts, type in Helvetica and watch everything on Google turn into comic sans. Also, according to Google Maps, there's a narwhal in London.
  • Home Depot has a fancy new logo!
  • The Chick-fil-A cows have quit and migrated en masse to the beach, leaving The Richards Group's ad campaign in the hoofs of a pig.
  • Think Geek, a brand that was sued by the National Pork Board last year for its April Fools' offering of unicorn meat, this year brings us anti-3D glasses called De-3D, an Apple Store Playmobil Playset, Angry Birds pork rinds, lightsaber popsicles, and … just go to the site.
  • YouTube has videos from 1911 and a bunch of annoying vloggers reporting on a fictional alien invasion.
  • Kodak is offering a new Relationshiffft app (see above), which removes your ex from all your photos.
  • Hulu's interface has been transformed into a crappy Web site from 1996. Navigate that, suckers!
  • LinkedIn has put a whole bunch of historical figures in the "People you might know" section.
  • Virgin says Richard Branson bought Pluto and made it a planet again.
  • Everything on Funny or Die is about teen-pop failure Rebecca Black. That might just be because it's Friday, though.
  • Groupon is offering tickets to this month's royal wedding.
  • AdBlock has announced that since its ad blockers works so well on browsers, they've developed the first ad-blocking sunglasses called AdBlock Freedom, which detect and block ads in the real world.
  • The U.S. Army is changing its official headgear to cowboy hats.
  There are surely thousands more. Let us know your favorites.
  UPDATE: Check out what some other media companies did today over at Adweek.

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Brands find time for usual April Fool's jokes

April 1 has historically been a great time for brands to have a little fun pranking their customers. Today is no exception. Google is offering two April Fool's hoaxes: Gmail Autopilot, a program that writes your e-mail replies for you; and the world's first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE). After scanning, CADIE created this hilarious page to reflect the likes and dislikes of the unwashed masses. YouTube flipped its videos upside down. Amazon launched a fleet of cloud-computing airships. The Guardian vowed to exclusively publish Tweets. BMW announced its new magnetic tow technology. Microsoft claims to be releasing Alpine Legend, a new Xbox 360 game (video above) that will do for yodeling what Guitar Hero did for rock 'n' roll (plus, you get a jaunty alpine hat). And, of course, you can book rooms on the moon at Hotels.com or flights to Mars through Expedia.com. Of course, my faves are the utterly believable ones. Got another example? Share with us in the comments.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

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