This April Fools' prank had 500,000 people believe SeenIt is Alia’s favourite app!
The toughest part: hiding it from our own team! Read on to know more...
We wanted to be different. We thought hard on what to do. If we had to celebrate April Fools' we had to do something believable yet far fetched enough that it’d be exciting — what better than being Alia Bhatt’s favourite fashion app!
The original post
Published on Vogue. NOT.
We came up with an article that looked as if it were published on Vogue. Except this wasn’t actually published on Vogue. It was us celebrating April Fools. For those of you who have read the Alia Bhatt Vogue article you know what I’m talking about. For the rest, here is a link to the original article.
Now, don’t tell us we didn’t leave any clues along the way. There were quite a few of you who caught the joke and wrote to us. Thanks for continuing to play along (let’s see if you caught all the hints):
The first few hints:
First few hints
Author Name, Date and Photographer's Name
Did you really think that a Vogue author would be called R U Serious (written as one word “Ruserious”) or that they would make such a glaring typo in their date (2018!). Also, the image source for those who didn’t catch it was JokALot — pronounced as “joke a lot”.
April Fools in the header bar
The one that most of you missed (understandably so), was the April Fools as a block on the header bar alongside “News, Fashion, Beauty etc.”
The next set of hints
Next set of hints
April Fools' image hidden in there
If you decided to check out the slideshow at the end of the article, the second image gave us away!
Article tags
Looks like nobody reads the tags at the end of the articles which included “April, Fool, Smile, Share” (Product Managers, do take note)
Call-to-action for next article
And if you truly loved Vogue (or this fun filled article), you would have wanted to read the next article, which said “Come back next year” now which publication would want you to visit only once a year?!
Finally, the most obvious hints
Running disclaimer on the bottom
The bottom text which continuously ran across the page like a stock market ticker read “This page is meant as a light hearted celebration. It may not represent the content provided by its original author. If you feel this page violates copyright or trademark laws or is otherwise offensive, please report it.”
All links lead to SeenIt
And if any of you tried clicking any link (yes, any link) on the entire page, guess what happened — we directed you to the SeenIt home page (now of course Vogue wouldn’t do that!). And for the geeks, do check out the UTM we used - click here!
The much needed apology
We hope all of you had as much fun reading, laughing, sharing this article as we did. Sorry to our true believers, investors, families and closest friends who believe in us so much so that they really thought Alia is our biggest fan. We're sure we’ll make this dream come true soon enough.
If you haven’t already, do check out what we do. Just like Alia was, we’re sure you too will be “Hooked”!
Creativity takes courage
This quote is up on one of our office walls and provides constant inspiration!
PS: Dear Alia and Dear Vogue, we meant no harm and only wanted to have a good laugh. We heart you guys! And we hate fake news as much as Donald Trump does and would never use it in a harmful way.
PPS: We even had a competitor attempt something very similar the day after. I guess it’s said for a reason “imitation is the truest form of flattery!” :P
