April Fools gives brands a chance to let their hair down and have some fun. This years was no different and Google's multi stranded approach caught my eye.

Here I've listed Google's four April Fool's Day PR stunts.

1. Google Maps, now in eight bit:

2. YouTube coming to DVD soon:

3. Gmail reduces the keyboard to a dot and a dash:

4. Chrome multitasking: use lots of mice, at the same time!

Why it (all) works

First of all, because some of the pieces have genuine humour. The “YouTube comes to DVD” and the “8 Bit Google Maps” stories are lovely concepts.

And of course all of these stories have been put together beautifully, with video explanations in the established style and with some serious money spent on production.

But mostly they work because there is a community into which these can be dropped that will talk endlessly about Google’s slightest move. And that includes laughing – in some cases sycophantically – at any joke it might choose to make.

The lesson for any brand though is that if you have a community established, then investing in smart stunts on the silliest day of the year will reap dividends.

In this case, they’ve managed to get stories away that support YouTube viewing (showing the diverse content available and the ridiculousness of going anywhere else for “how to” video content), they’ve got a cracking maps story away, been so silly it hurts in showing off Gmail successfully and have promoted Chrome to full effect with some lateral thinking.

Google around the world, Antics Roadshow salutes your April Fool’s efforts …

James Gordon-MacIntosh is a managing partner at Hope&Glory PR and from time-to-time pens Spinning Around, a blog that he describes as “thinking out loud”.