Microsoft leads the way in banning April Fools’ Day pranks

Everyone hates April Fools’ Day, and Microsoft is taking a stand towards its own company pranks. Microsoft’s advertising and marketing chief Chris Capossela has warned all personnel to no longer take part inside the process of worrying hoaxes on Monday. In an internal memo, obtained and tested through The Verge, Capossela explains that “facts tell us those stunts have limited fine impact and may, in reality, bring about undesirable information cycles.” He encourages all teams interior Microsoft no longer to do any public-dealing with April Fools’ Day stunts.

“I recognize that humans might also have devoted time and resources to those sports, however, I agree with we’ve more to lose than benefit by way of attempting to be humorous in this at some point,” says Capossela. That’s probably a safe wager, as we’ve visible a few April Fools’ Day pranks backfire spectacularly in the past. Google become compelled to make an apology for including Despicable Me minions into emails and muting threads a few years ago, causing email havoc for Gmail customers. Microsoft has also participated in lots of April Fools’ Day pranks over the years, including an MS-DOS mobile for Windows Phone and Google insults.

Microsoft’s April Fools’ Day ban comes simply as the employer resurrected its Clippy Office assistant before killing it off a day later. Microsoft workers converted the paperclip into an animated % of stickers for the organization’s Teams chat software program, however, a source tells The Verge that the “logo police” inside the agency close it down a day later.

April Fools’ Day is a 500-12 months subculture that we are able to in all likelihood live without, however, it persists every and every 12 months regardless. Microsoft is surely trying to lead the way and trade that from a tech attitude, so we’ll see if the same message has reached Google, Amazon, Snap, T-Mobile, and the numerous other tech companies that participated in the annual prank day the last yr.

Here’s Capossela’s full internal memo:

Hey everyone,

It’s that time of year when tech companies try to show their creativity with April Fools’ Day stunts. Sometimes the outcomes are amusing and sometimes they’re not. Either way, data tells us these stunts have limited positive impact and can actually result in unwanted news cycles.

Considering the headwinds the tech industry is facing today, I’m asking all teams at Microsoft to not do any public-facing April Fools’ Day stunts. I appreciate that people may have devoted time and resources to these activities, but I believe we have more to lose than gain by attempting to be funny on this one day.

Please forward to your teams and internal partners to ensure people are aware of the ask to stand down on external April Fools’ Day activities.