THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 9th Annual Shorty Awards

Silicon Valley and X April Fools' Featuring Richard Hendricks

Bronze Honor in Comedy Video

Objectives

April 1st, 2016 was a big day for the advancement of Richard Hendricks' career.


Together, HBO and X, the moonshot division of Alphabet Inc., crafted a Silicon Valley-themed April Fools' stunt to help continue Alphabet's annual tradition.

Taking advantage of the Alphabet/Google Family's favorite holiday, HBO and X set out to create a humorous April Fools joke in the form of an in-story video announcing that X is hiring Thomas Middleditch's character Richard Hendricks from Silicon Valley. X's experimental moonshot division…to lead their new real-world compression efforts.

Strategy and Execution

On the morning of April 1st, X announced that Richard Hendricks had been hired as X's Chief Compression Officer to make the company's biggest moonshots smaller. The announcement was published on X's company website and Google social profiles, along with a video featuring Astro Teller and Richard Hendricks.

Results

Fans were delighted by the announcement and video, which were picked up by industry blogs such as the Hollywood Reporter and lifestyle blogs such as Hypebeast.

Media

Video for Silicon Valley and X April Fools' Featuring Richard Hendricks

Entrant Company / Organization Name

HBO

Entry Credits