PETALING JAYA: The jewellery heist at the Louvre Museum is one of the most interesting robberies in recent years. Not only did it involve stolen artefacts worth about €88mil (RM432.86mil), but the robbers took about seven minutes to rob the museum in broad daylight!
Photographs of the crime scene were published and seen online. But did a company decide to use one of those photographs as an advertisement?
VERDICT:
TRUE
Interestingly enough, German company Böcker used a press photo of its machine called the Böcker Agilo, a lift that can be used in construction or to hoist furniture to apartments through upper-story windows, for a tongue-in-cheek advertisement.
The ad, which appears on the company’s Instagram account, includes the caption in German which reads, “WENN’S MAL WIEDER SCHNELL GEHEN MUSS. Der Bocker Agilo befordert eure bis zu 400kg schweren Schätze mit 42 m/min – flüsterleise Dank 230 V E-Motor.” ( translated, it says, IF YOU’RE IN A HURRY. The Böcker Agilo carries your treasures up to 400kg at 42m/min – quiet as a whisper thanks to its 230 V electric motor.”)
The post appeared on Oct 20, with an English version of the advert appearing a few days later. Both Instagram posts received over 150,000 Likes, and many praised the company for ‘hitting the iron while it’s hot’ with the advert.
German businessman Alexander Böcker said he was reading the news of the heist with his wife Julia Scharwatz when Scharwatz recognised the Böcker Agilo, which was used in the incident.
“If you know the product, you can really quickly identify that it was your product,” Böcker told CBS News.
“It became clear to us that this is a reprehensible act, and they have used our machine for it.”
As more details of the robbery emerged, and it was reported that no one had been hurt, Böcker and Scharwatz, who works alongside her husband as the company’s head of marketing, began receiving messages from colleagues and employees asking: “Can’t we make something out of it?”
Böcker and his employees then brainstormed what to do and came up with several slogans. The company then licensed the AFP photo and began running a campaign with it.
Böcker was quoted by Reuters as saying that the response to the company’s tongue-in-cheek ad campaign has been “overwhelming” and primarily positive.
“Luckily for us, most of the people got the humour and know that we are not involved in the robbery, and we were very pleased with the reaction so far,” he added.
The latest update to this heist saw four individuals charged with organised theft and criminal conspiracy, while the treasures are yet to be recovered.
Authorities also stated that the Louvre Museum would require several years to upgrade its security to ensure a similar incident does not occur again.
REFERENCES:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/
