Earlier this week a video was published on YouTube by a German marketing firm Jung Von Matt/Neckar advertises DHL through a prank. Packages labelled “DHL is faster”are sent with competing delivery services such as UPS. Since the video was published earlier this week, it has been viewed over 3 million times.

After reading the blog post Agency’s Ice-Cold Prank Turns DHL’s Rivals Into DHL Advertisers by Gabriel Beltrone I was surprised to learn that the prank by this German marketing firm was not coordinated by DHL. According to Beltrone, the marketing agency made the video for to differentiate itself from its own competitors in the marketing industry.

In this case the marketing firm advertised DHL, to many consumers it may seem like this is the primary goal of the advertisement, to show that “DHL is Faster”, this was in fact the external goal, but the internal goal was to showcase the creativity of the German marketing firm. According to the blog by Beltrone, the firm had no specific interest in advertising DHL but rather, showcasing its own abilities.

In my opinion, the marketing firm has successfully proved its marketing abilities with this advertisement, because it has achieved exactly what it wants, it gained many views and many rumours regarding if the video is real or fake. At a time where commercials are seen as “annoying” and advertisers are doing everything they can to appeal to viewers such as in the Super Bowl; It is my belief that the firm wanted people to discuss the video, whether they thought it was fake or not was irrelevant. By having people talk about it, it has achieved its goal.

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