For April Fools 2014, iStrategyLabs launched a "product" called BeardSwipe — a mobile application that allows bearded men to easily access their devices by simply rubbing their phones against their facial hair.
The ISL team put together a robust campaign poking fun at a contemporary "startup launch" — including a social media campaign on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – to ensure the prank was fully believable. Users landed on a striking, single-page website that elegantly communicated the full offering of the BeardSwipe App. The site drove users to a sexy promotional video, featuring many of our bearded and not-so-bearded team members. When users clicked the "Download The App button they were taken to ISL's website and informed that they had, in fact, been April Fool-ed.
BeardSwipe drove over 100,000 site views, over 100,000 video views and generated over 5.75 million Twitter impressions. The campaign was featured in VentureBeat, The Huffington Post, and ABC News.
#BecauseBeards
But really, BeardSwipe allowed iStrategyLabs to flex our creative muscles -- deploying cutting edge design and development, utilizing creative concepting, and perfecting smart digital and social campaign execution.
As a company, we are driven to create things that have never been done before, which means we're not waiting for client projects to come around, it means we're building things that get the world excited -- and that in turn creates new opportunities for us. Our dedicated R&D efforts and subsequent client work doesn't just look at "digital" or "social" but at the entire range of human-centered interaction.
We're built on a culture of experimentation — from the 3D-printed "PiePal" (an internet-connected emergency button for ordering pizza), to the "SELFIE" Mirror that takes your selfie for you and posts it to Twitter when stand near it and smile -- to the recent " Dorothy" app that's exploded on the internet and morning talk shows.
Beardswipe revolutionized the way men across the nation feel about their facial hair. It gave them a sense of pride, glory and most of all, security...even though it did not exist.
