A German company has gone viral for turning one of Europe’s most talked-about crimes into an ad campaign, proudly using a photo from the Louvre robbery itself to promote its own machine.
Bocker Maschinenwerke, a lift manufacturer based in Werne, Germany, shared an Instagram post on October 23 showing one of its furniture elevators at the actual Louvre crime scene, the same lift model used in the October 19 heist that stunned France.
Details of the robbery have since been made public, with authorities confirming that the burglars used a professional-grade lift to access the Denon Wing, the same section that houses the Mona Lisa.
Bocker later identified the lift as one of its own, which was originally sold to a Paris rental company in 2020 and allegedly stolen before the crime. However, instead of distancing itself from the incident, Bocker embraced the attention.
German lift firm pokes fun at Louvre heist
The company reposted the now-famous photo as part of a tongue-in-cheek social campaign highlighting the lift’s speed and efficiency, with the caption, “When you need to move fast,” followed by “The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min – quiet as a whisper.” The post even has the hashtags #Louvre and #Bocker to really hammer the point home.
The post has quickly gone viral, and comments have flooded in, with commenters calling it “marketing genius.” One wrote, “Give that marketing team a good raise,” while another added that Bocker has proved, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity. Every crisis is an opportunity!!”
The post has been shared thousands of times, drawing headlines across Europe and boosting Bocker’s social following overnight.
Whether it’s bad taste or brilliant branding, Bocker’s quick-thinking social team has ensured the company’s name is now as famous as the heist itself.
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