Fisher Space Pen
April Fool’s Day in the internet age was always a fun time. To me April Fool’s online was often the best day for brands to stress test a concept that they have on the back burner to see if the general public would react well to a wild and crazy idea. Some of have been made into actual products, while others have not been as successful. In some cases, a botched April Fool’s Day post makes for lifetime customer.
My most memorable interaction with a brand on this day was with the Fisher Space Pen company. Fisher Space Pen, for the unfamiliar, is the company that manufactures the Space Pen. More specifically the pressurized pen cartridge that was used for various NASA Missions. Many have probably heard about how NASA paid oodles of money to develop a pen that could write in zero gravity, while the Russians simply used a pencil, and how this is an example of “over designing”. However just as many are unfamiliar with the fact that pencils should not be used in space due to graphite flakes flying into the sensitive machinery. But, I digress.
Several years ago Fisher Space Pen posted an innocent enough April Fool’s post that consisted of a zoomed in section of a Where’s Waldo page and stated “Find Waldo and get a free Space Pen!”. The only issue being that the image they posted happened to be a zoomed in section that featured Waldo. I replied “Found him” and didn’t expect much to come from it. Until I received a direct message from Fisher Space Pen, informing me that I had replied while the image was still up and although it was an April Fool’s Joke they were going to honor the “contest” and send me a Chrome Bullet Pen (with a retail value of $25 at the time)
I was elated since I had considered purchasing that very same pen for a few months leading up to this happy accident. The pen arrived by mail a few days later and I carried it until I lost it several years later when I turned in my work jacket along with the pen.
This post goes out to whoever was running the Fisher Space Pen social media in Spring of 2016
