Bingo Brands Do April Fools Day 2022
Published On 1st April 2022
It's April 1st and that means it's time for the annual custom of hoaxes and pranks. Sadly long gone are the days of The BBC reporting on harvesting spaghetti from trees which hooked many people into believing it's validity. Instead today many big brands jump on the April Fool's bandwagon often with mixed results. There are some cool ideas such as Walkers Giant Bread Shaped Crisps and lame ideas such as Frankie & Benny doing away with condiments. The problem is that any brand putting out anything remotely questionable on April 1st - except for energy, broadband and council tax rises - is immediately going to be shot down in flames. But what are bingo brands doing to fool their customers? We decided to take a closer look.
Tombola's Teal Lipstick
A bingo brand jumping into the beauty business may not sound that far fetched. Back in 2012 Foxy Bingo launched their 'Furever' perfume with Lauren Goodger whilst a couple of years later together with Neil Ruddock they were pushing waxing strips. Tombola have neither of them as part of their jolly jape, instead preferring to reveal their very own "tombola teal lipstick". This announcement was posted on Facebook along with a link so that players could find out how to get hold of one. Once you follow the link you're immediately told that you've been had, provided you'd not already realised that it was a joke. To compensate for their tombolafoolery (see what we did there) they're offering a couple of chances to win bonuses via chat and Facebook.
Meal For Two At Mecca Bingo?
There have been many debates about bingo calls and whether they need updating for modern society. For example should we still be referring to 88 as two fat ladies and wolf-whistling on Legs 11? Mecca Bingo decided April 1st was a good time to let their players know that they'd decided - after extensive consultations with customers and stakeholders - to drop the number 69 call from all future bingo games. "We firmly believe that its indecent connations mean that it can no longer be deemed acceptable in our bingo games - both online and in venues". The number 69 wouldn't be replaced and instead all 90 ball games would become 89. We thought this was a bit lame in April Fools terms but some people did fall for it. The appropriately named Lisa Nobbs posted on Facebook that the decision was "absolutely ridiculous... FAR too many snowflakes in today society". She did then go on to ask if it was an April Fools!
Buzz Bingo Honey
Mecca may well have been influenced by Buzz Bingo's efforts from last year as Buzz announced the removal of the number 20 as 2020 had been such a rubbish year (by that logic we need to drop 21 and 22). But what have Buzz chosen for 2022? Although we know there have been bingo branded beauty products we're not sure there have ever been any food products. Buzz Bingo hoped to catch out their regulars on Facebook with the announcement of a brand new product called Pot Of Gold. They posted that they've "got big newzzz... Buzz Bingo 'Pot of Gold' Honey hits supermarket shelves across Britain next week. Start each day as you mean to go on. Go for gold!". A mocked up image of a Buzz Bingo jar of honey was also posted. We actually quite like this idea as it ties in with the brand (Buzz - Bees - Honey). However no one on Buzz's Facebook page was getting overly excited about the announcement (where's Lisa Nobbs when you need her). Buzz also didn't help their attempts at fooling anyone by posting #gotcha on the original post.
Sunny's Sizzling Burgers
There's more food related jokes and another bingo announcement from Sun Bingo. They've posted on Facebook that "after careful consideration we have decided to stop all bingo operations. We will instead follow our dream and rename the business Sunny's Sizzling Burgers. We will shut down the sunbingo.co.uk website in the next few hours and open stalls across the UK to sell our delicious patties". Let's face it, this is a rubbish attempt at humour or April Foolishness. It doesn't make sense or have any degree of tangibility towards either the product or brand. At least Tombola, Mecca and Buzz made a decent effort. Mind you shutting down Sun Bingo would actually not be a bad plan as their affiliate program is an absolute joke 365 days of the year (bet you're not going to copy that line fellow bingo writers).
Were You Fooled?
None of the above are ever going to make into the April Fool's Day Hall Of Fame. Interestingly a lot of brands - for example Gala, Foxy, Jackpotjoy - decided to not get involved with the annual silliness. We kind of wonder whether that's down to legalities or the marketing teams deciding it's actually quite a lame thing to do these days. We're opting for the latter simply because with social media it takes 10 seconds for someone to post "it's an April Fools" and the joke is done and dusted. That said we ourselves have enjoyed a few of own attempts in the past - announcing an annual trans-Atlantic duck race, a voice controlled competiton tracker and taxes on competition prizes were are best efforts. However removing our Loquax duck (pre-UKGC) and saying we were being sued by Disney for copyright worked the best in terms of sucking people into the lie. If we spot any more bingo related jokes then we'll add them to the above - in the mean time we're off to dream of Giant Bread Shaped Crisps.
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