Fool Everyone; Upset No One

“We are confident that you can come up with the most spectacular April Fools Day prank in the history of the world,” said the company president.

“Thank-you, sir; I will do my best to make the company proud.”

“Go for it, Mr. Burnet. The goal is to generate interest in Algon cars.”

“Yes sir.”

William Burnet was the rising star of the Algon Motor Company. He was the newest member of the advertising department, and with several innovative and successful ad campaigns, he was the golden boy. Company executives loved this young guy from Texas. His forward-looking ideas were a refreshing change from the staid, old-fashioned, stale stuff of previous years. This year, the company president tasked Burnet with devising a special April Fools Day campaign.

“I want you to fool everyone, but upset no one,” said Frank Stern. “Does that make sense?”

“Yes sir,” said Burnet. “I understand perfectly.

Burnet sat at his desk, gazing out the window of the Algon downtown Detroit office building. He could see Tiger Stadium not far away - where he and his father had many times watched the Tigers play baseball. Burnet recalled the team placed a shiny new Ford Mustang on a platform in the left field stands, just behind the bullpen. Some lucky fan won the car by virtue of guessing that Pudge Rodriguez would hit a home run in the 7th inning. 

“That’s it,” said Burnet to the window. “We are, after all, an automobile company. I’ll fake a car giveaway. Everyone wants an Algon Marauder. Millions of people will enter the contest, more people will visit Algon dealerships, and buy more Algon cars. Make everyone think they’ve won a car. This will be the greatest April Fools gag ever.”

Burnet began tapping away at his computer, outlining the details of his plan for a fake giveaway of the most popular car in the Algon line. He would blast this fake giveaway announcement over the company social media pages, advertise on local television and radio, generating interest in this playful scam. He stayed in the office until well past midnight, writing, thinking, changing; writing, changing, until he had what he felt was the perfect fake contest.

‘You probably just won a new car. Every entrant may win a new car!’ he typed. No, that’s not it.

‘You probably just won a new car. Every entrant may win a new Algon Marauder.’ Better.

‘You probably just won a new car! Every entrant wins a new Marauder!’ Oops, no, that’s not it.

‘You probably just won a new car! Every entrants wins an Algon Marauder two-door sports car!’ That might be it. Oops, it should be ‘entrant.’ Burnet moved the cursor and hit the backspace key to delete the unneeded character.

“Got it,” he said aloud. He read it again quickly, and decided this was the message he would send on social media, print, TV, and radio. 

Early the next morning, after only a few hours sleep and a few sips of morning coffee, Burnet was back in his office, ready to put his plan to action. Within an hour, his ad campaign was in high gear. It went out on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Detroit television, and several radio stations. Burnet was certain the buzz would be huge, and he was correct. Unfortunately, he did not yet realize just how huge. He checked with the social media manager and was happy to hear that tens of thousands of people had already responded on social media, registering their names for the contest. 

Less than an hour after the campaign launched, Algon headquarters began receiving an avalanche of calls. 

“What’s going on?” said Jenelle Reilly, head of Algon Marketing.

“We’re getting thousands of phone calls,” said her assistant. 

“That’s what was supposed to happen,’ said Reilly.

“I don’t think this is quite what we expected,” said the assistant. He told his boss what the callers were saying.

“All of them?”

“Every last one. Thousands and thousands.”

“I better tell Stern about this,” said Reilly.

“They’re doing WHAT?” said Stern. “Are you kidding me?”

“No sir.”

“Is this part of the gag? Burnet’s April Fools joke?”

“Uh, no, Mr. Stern. It’s beginning to look like we are the butt of the joke.”

Stern pushed a few buttons on his phone and leaned close to the microphone.

Burnet, sitting at his desk two floors below Stern’s office, jumped when Stern’s voice erupted from the speaker.

“BURNET, GET UP HERE!” shouted Stern.

Burnet leaped from his chair and ran through his door to the stairwell doors. He sprinted up two flights of stairs, wove a spectacularly fast route through the secretary’s desks and stopped before Stern’s office. He stood for a moment, panting and heaving, sweat gushing from every pore. He was certain he would have a heart attack and die right then and there. Given the circumstances that were about to be revealed, that was not necessarily a bad thing.

“He’s waiting,” said Stern’s executive assistant.

Stern was standing behind his desk when Burnet hurried through the door. 

“Mr. Stern…” he began.

“Burnet. Are you insane?”

“Sir?”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Sir, I don’t…”

“I must be going out of my mind,” said Stern.

“Mr. Stern, what is this all about?”

“You don’t know.”

“No sir, I have no idea what’s happening.”

“Your April Fools campaign. The Marauder fake giveaway.”

“I talked to Stevens in Social Media a while ago. He said they’re getting thousands of hits on the web site.”

“Uh huh. We’re also getting thousands of phone calls,” said Stern, staring intently at his young ad man. “Thousands, Burnet.”

“Isn’t that what we wanted, sir?”

“I don’t think you understand the problem, Burnet.”

“I guess I don’t, sir. Maybe you could exp…”

“YOU’RE FIRED! YOU IDIOT!”

Burnet jumped back at the force of Stern’s voice. His mouth fell open as he watched Stern’s face turn a spectacular shade of red. The veins on the president’s neck stood out, and Burnet watched in fascination as he saw the blood vessels pulsating. 

“Fired?”

“GET OUT OF HERE!” shouted Stern. “GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I TEAR YOUR ARMS OFF AND SHOVE THEM DOWN YOUR THROAT!”

Burnet backed quickly away from the enraged man. His instinct was to turn and run, but he was afraid to turn away from Stern. The look on the president’s face made Burnet believe that Stern would at any second, grab him by the arms and tear them off. Finally, Stern stopped shouting, turned, and walked toward the huge window behind his desk. Burnet backed into a desk, still unable to tear his gaze from his now former boss.

“Geez, Billy,” said a voice from behind. “What’s going on?”

“He fired me.”

“I heard,” said the friend. “Everyone heard. I think they heard it in Toronto. But why?”

“I still don’t know,” said Burnet. He turned to Stern’s executive assistant. “Joe? What? What did I do?”

“You still don’t know?”

“No! I don’t have a clue.”

The assistant picked a sheet of paper from his desk and handed it to Burnet. “Your April Fools Day prank giveaway copy.”

Burnet took the paper, glancing quickly at it. 

“Yeah, I wrote this - the fake giveaway. It was supposed to make everyone think they won a car.”

“They don’t think they won a car,” said the assistant.

“What?”

“Read it carefully, Mr. Burnet.”

Burnet held the paper in both hands and fixed his gaze on the words. He was still stunned from the ferocity of Stern’s attack, and he had a difficult time focusing. He read it, then read it again. He looked at the social media manager, and then the assistant. He looked at the paper again. The telltale phrase seemed to leap off the paper. He handed the paper to his friend.

“Holy sh…” 

“You probably just won a new car! Every entrant wins an Algon Marauder two-door sports car!” read the assistant aloud.

“Oh, crap,” said Burnet.

“Yeah. April Fools, huh, Billy?”

“Mr. Burnet, you just gave away tens of thousands, if not more, brand new Algon Marauder two-door sports cars. Congratulations, you may be the most popular person in Detroit. Outside of this building, that is.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Burnet, quietly.

“Do you know what this means, Mr. Burnet?”

Burnet stared at the assistant, then his friend, the paper, and back to the assistant. He nodded.

“You’ve bankrupted the Algon Motor Company,” said the assistant. “Many of us will lose our jobs.”

“I…”

Two Algon security guards approached Burnet.

“Mr. Burnet, we have instructions to escort you out of the building, sir.”

The most popular man in Detroit, outside of the Algon building, had succeeded at President Stern’s directive: it may well have been the most spectacular April Fools Day prank in history. He fooled everyone, and upset no one. Other than everyone at Algon, that is.