Fake Stories Launch Real Products Edit

Flying Penguins Launch BBC iPlayer
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Ah, April Fool’s. The one day that your friends can legitimately bray with laughter as you scurry to the dictionary to verify their assertion that the word ‘gullible’ isn’t in there.

A breathy Terry Jones (he of Monty Python fame) takes on David Attenborough’s mantle, walking amongst and marveling at a newly discovered colony of flying penguins. That’s right flying penguins, and penguins that fly south to the rainforest in winter no less. Yup, apparently that stultifyingly dull biology ‘teacher’ that bored you into biological ignorance was wrong.

In reality the spot, to launch the BBC’s DVR-killing iPlayer, is all about smart new media use matched to top creative: it’s a high production value, wonderfully shot pastiche of the wildly successful Planet Earth phenomenon for which the Beeb is rightly famous, using clever creative that the BBC could only launch on April Fool’s. Make it clever, make it relevant, make it funny and make it timely and they will watch.