KBB companies have spent the day pretending to announce ludicrous concept products as the sector marks April Fools Day once again. Here’s a roundup of some of the ones you might have missed.
Miro Cooker Hoods revealed Il Matto, the “world’s first self-cleaning venting hob”, which it illustrated with an image of a hob which is blasting out a stream of water straight upwards.
Admitting to the joke later on in the day, Miro said: Okay, we confess… IL MATTO was just a bit of April Fools’ fun! But while a self-cleaning venting hob might be wishful thinking, our real venting hobs are no joke.”
On a related note, The Kitchen Depot pretended it had launched self-cleaning kitchens. In a post on LinkedIn, it confessed: “okay, not really – but our smart designs do save you time and effort.”
Business management software TruBlu joked that it was changing its name to TruGreen. As part of the fun, it said the new TruGreen system was “tailored towards old 16 and 32-bit operating systems”, telling followers: “If you have an old beige-box hooked up to a CRT monitor, If you like going out shopping while a catalogue downloads, we’ve got you covered.”
Napier Interiors pretended it was launching a special limited-edition crystal toilet. On the topic of toilets, Roca UK & Ireland pretended it was launching a WC that employed a motion-sensor to raise its seat. Humourously, it featured five “iconic” audio options, including the Jaws theme.
Kutchenhaus Wrexham tried to fool its social media followers by pretending to launch “The Kutchenhaus Floating Island”. Taken literally, the island itself appears to hover several feet off the ground. Kutchenhaus ended its post by adding: “Happy April Fools from all of us at Wrexham- where even our kitchens are taking things to new heights!”
There was also a noticeable trend this year for “launching” multifunctional tap products with bizarre functions.
For example, St James pretended to launch a new “Instant Tea Tap”, which was said to deliver “the quintessential British tea experience”, by dispensing Yorkshire tea at the push of a button.
Similarly, Billi pretended to release a tap that dispensed bubbly champagne at the impressive rate of “100 litres an hour”. And Quooker teased a product that dispenses crushed ice straight from the tap, which it joked would be launching next year.
Perhaps most impressive of all, InSinkErator has spent several weeks pretending to launch a new and innovative matcha hot tap. According to the company, the fake product was able to capture nationwide attention, and attracted over 15,000 website page views, 117,000 Instagram views, and 300 engagements. The story was reportedly also covered within lifestyle and trade media titles – kbbreview itself received a very convincing-looking press release about the project last week.
Anne Kaarlela, InSinkErator’s marketing communications and customer service manager for Europe commented:“Fresh off the back of our Brushed Copper and Brushed Gold tap finishes, which we launched earlier this year, we saw a perfect opportunity to do something a little different for April Fool’s to capture the attention of consumers.
“It has been fun to jump on the matcha trend and cause a stir (pun intended) over recent weeks and we enjoyed the response the idea received. It would be certainly interesting to see a product like this come to life one day. Never say never!”
