AJIO EX-CHANGE: an April Fool's launch in 72 hours

The context April Fool's Day is one of the hardest days for brands. Everyone launches a fake product and it all starts to feel the same. The internet has become very good at spotting the joke, and the second people do, they move on. So we were not trying to make the funniest campaign. We were trying to make the most believable one.

The idea AJIO EX-CHANGE: a fake service where you exchange everything your ex left behind for AJIO shopping credits. The old hoodie. The late-night chats. The selfies. Emotional baggage finally had resale value.

The test for every frame: would someone send this to a friend saying "have you seen what AJIO just launched?"

72 hours, everything Script, storyboards, AI-generated visuals, sound design and a landing page. We wrote many versions of the script. Some were too funny, some so believable the joke disappeared. The film was made with an AI-first workflow, which does not mean one prompt. Every scene went through multiple generations until it felt like a real AJIO campaign.

People who believed it needed somewhere to go, so we also designed an AJIO EX-CHANGE landing page with branding, product messaging and a sign-up flow.

The curveball About 24 hours before launch, the script and storyboard were approved and 20 to 30 seconds of the film was done. Then a late-night call: can we tell it from a girl's perspective instead? Normally that pushes the deadline. This one didn't move.

The result Live for two days. People shared it, tagged their friends, tagged their exes, and argued in the comments about whether it was real. It was picked up by Campaign India, afaqs! and Social Samosa, plus marketing creators and industry pages.

Want a launch people argue about? Send me a message.