Great advertising ignites an emotion. This stunt is certain to be igniting the fury of Deutsche Post DHL’s competitors. It may also reignite the idea that adpeople are evil. But, given that it had 4,777,571 YouTube views in two weeks, it ignited consumers’ sense of humour. And, it sure gets its message across.
Essentially, Stuttgart agency, Jung von Matt/Neckar, tricked DHL’s rivals into advertising DHL. It arranged for DHL’s rival logistics companies to deliver packages that looked innocuous until they became warm. Then they turned themselves into moving billboards that read, “DHL is faster.”
The stunt was accomplished by wrapping the boxes in thermo-active foil that, when cooled before pick-up. hid the message until well after the packages had been picked up by the competitors’ delivery people.
DHL has distanced itself from the evil genius of the stunt, “This was not something that was initiated by DHL. The video was created by an external agency for their own internal competition. We were aware in advance of the intention to use it for this purpose. We were not aware of any plans to share it externally.”
Jung von Matt uploaded the video onto YouTube, but claimed that Deutsche Post DHL is a long term client and was in on the prank.
Creative credits:
Title: Trojan mailing
Agency: Jung von Matt/Neckar
Copywriters: Kai Schmelzle & Jan-Erik Scheibner
Art director: Raphaela Sigg
Director and editor: Tim Steffan
