April Fool's Day prank: InVideo creates buzz for voice command video editor

Leveraging stories, newsletters, website landing page and tweets, InVideo was able to garner 2500 subscribers for an intelligent video assistant, as a prank.

While throughout the year brands remain honest with their audience to score credibility, April Fool's is the one day, where they get to play a prank on them with some wit and quirk. Capitalising on the opportunity, InVideo, a SaaS Company, announced a new IVA (Intelligent Video Assistant) iva.invideo.in feature a few days before the beginning of April this year. The said feature was positioned as a voice command video editor assistant that can create videos for users in minutes, without them having to lift a finger. The company took to social media platforms and even issued a press release as a part of the prank.

InVideo’s creative team made a landing page outlining all the benefits of the AI video maker asking users to sign up in order to get updates and early access to the feature which is set to launch in April. The company's CEO Sanket Shah even posted the video on his Facebook group, just as he has been doing it for every new product in the past. These efforts helped the company reach 15,000 users in a day, generating curiosity.

Taking it a step further, InVideo sent out a newsletter introducing the IVA feature with a ‘call to action’ – so that the existing users can be the first in the queue to get their access.

The campaign strategically banked on digital tools such as stories, newsletters, website landing page, tweets and posts. No social media ads were used to reach more people.

On 1st April, InVideo provided a link to all its registered users, only to reveal that it was all a practical joke – while a voice assistant does exist, it can’t churn out videos (not as yet at least). 

Sanket Shah, CEO of Invideo said, “The idea behind this prank was to make a bold move and entice the audience with something to look forward to. Aside from the entertainment generated by the campaign, we are pleased with the interest shown by the audience, and the insightful data it has provided for our learning as a consumer brand. For instance, every 1 in 2 people from our existing customer base who landed on our website, signed up for the IVA feature. This was an excellent marketing tactic with a whole lot of fun!”