A Swedish artist named Erik Nordenenkar claimed he wanted to create the Biggest Drawing in the World by shipping a briefcase along a certain trajectory and tracking it by GPS.
Very cool idea, but a hoax. Wired was calling bullshit almost immediately, and it was later confirmed by DHL that their actual involvement was limited to letting him use their warehouse and logos for this “entirely fictional project”.
I’m left wondering whether the whole thing was just a DHL viral from end to end, or whether it was really just a case of them letting him use their likeness in an art project and then making sure the facts were clear once it broke big.
Nordenenkar’s site seems to suggest that it simply was an art project.
Either way, DHL comes out looking like a pretty smart company. You can’t buy this kind of ink. Well, you can, but it’s really, really expensive. Haven’t seen this kind of return on (minimal) investment since the Diet Coke and Mentos thing.
The video is here.
written by Geoff Teehan
It’s possible this was an agency idea that got diluted when they got into the details. “Too many logistics, just fake it”.
Even if the idea wasn’t coming out of an agency I’m left torn about the execution. Why is this fictional? Sounds to me like DHL knew this was going on in the early stages. This could have been made so much more powerful (for me at least) if they had helped plot an actual route to create the image.
In the end we’re talking about it – that’s worth something.