My Favorite April Fools’ Event

More than a few years ago, a clever marketing executive planned and executed the best April Fools’ event I’ve ever seen. He took the front label of TUMS, one of the best known brand names in America, and turned it into this unique talk piece!

How he managed to do this in an organization that is known for tight control and high standards will remain a mystery. But by flipping the TUMS logo he caused a ruckus in headquarters. He sold it well by claiming that consumers were calling in and complaining about this labeling mistake they found at retail. And this caused the plant and packaging approval teams to jump into action to figure out how this happened, and the sales teams to try to identify how widespread this packaging error was in the marketplace.

Of course, it was an April Fools’ joke and the product was not on retail shelves. But more than a few people bought into it and had quite the scare!

Well played Paul Wardle!