Macmillan Cancer Support launches April Fool’s campaign

Macmillan Cancer Support has worked with Google to launch a spoof April Fool’s Day campaign featuring fictional island “Macmilland” on Google maps.

Macmilland
Macmilland

The campaign, created by design agency KentLyons, was developed to generate a buzz around the cancer charity’s annual fundraising event, the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning.

The spoof campaign sees the fictional Macmilland Island appear on Google map searches as a genuine landscape. The island, which is in the shape of a coffee cup, is inhabited by rare coffee plants and includes a beach lagoon formed in the handle of the cup.

As part of the campaign, KentLyons set up a blog under the guise of fictional explorer Kai Bentham, who is said to have discovered the new island.

The charity says the April Fool’s Day campaign is the start of a number of “innovative marketing activities” in the run up to the event in September.

Last year, the charity launched a two-month multi-channel advertising campaign featuring the voice of actress Helena Bonham Carter to promote its new free phone service.