Trojan Mailing
DHL Packet
Issue 31 | June 2014
Agency
Jung von Matt Stuttgart
Creative Team
Creative Director, Copy Philipp Barth Creative Director, Art Holger Ohrlich Copywriters Kai Schmelzle Jan-Erik Scheibner Art Director Raphaela Sigg
Production Team
Producer Simone Abel Film Producers Tim Steffan Tom Lupo
Other Credits
Project Manager Susanne Barthel
Date
January 2014
Background
DHL has more company locations, more vehicles and more staff than any other courier company. It is why they are faster than everyone else.
Rather than run a traditional advertising campaign, which is expensive, the aim was to reach as many people as possible without paying for media space.
Idea
Rather than use DHL to get the message across, the idea was to get the competitors to do it. So, couriers working for UPS, TNT and DPD were persuaded to advertise DHL, voluntarily.
DHL put together large packages, which were wrapped in thermo-active foil. When cooled, the packages turned black. This is what the rival courier companies came to pick up, large black boxes. However, inside their vans, as the temperature warmed up, the message appeared on the parcel, 'DHL is faster'.
Bystanders were amused to see couriers delivering packages with this competitive claim. The video of the stunt rapidly went viral.
Results
With over four million views in the first week, the film was among the top ten most popular YouTube videos and became the number one topic on Twitter. Major TV channels reported the story and news media and blogs around the world took it up.
Our Thoughts
This has had well over 5.1m views on YouTube, probably closer to 6m in all. But DHL claim to have had nothing to do with it, issuing a statement that said: “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.”
One blogger commented, “If this story develops as I expect... it would in fact be another deeply cynical symbol of an industry that keeps revolving around itself.”
That may be true. On the other hand, the next most-viewed DHL video on YouTube has had just 406,000 views. So Jung von Matt have helped DHL reach more people for less money than any of their roster agencies with an idea which, frankly, is (a) funny and (b) a demonstration of what clever creative people can do for a brand – if only clients would allow them to. As much as anything, you could see this stunt as a protest against the sort of unnoticeable drivel most clients demand of their agencies.