This is the story of how I accidentally created a new product line, and it all starts with an (early) April Fools Day post. No brief, zero budget, just a silly little joke I wrote that the client loved as much as we did.

Coffee mate loves coffee so much, we made coffee-flavored Coffee mate so your coffee could taste more like coffee.

It made all the year’s top April Fools Day brand round-ups and we earned millions of impressions, but the response we got from the fans was anything but a joke. Some people didn’t realize it was an April Fools, and those who did wished it wasn’t.

We were thrilled, and once again, so was the client. They told us they’d be back with a brief to capitalize on this excitement, and then… nothing. We were disappointed, but still chalked the success of April Fools Day up as a win.

Until three and a half years later, when I’m no longer working on the brand, a new product hits the shelves.

So did I technically create the coffee-flavored Coffee mate creamer? No. But I think we can all also agree that yes, yes I did.