Status: Strange guerrilla marketing campaign
Brussels Airlines has been experimenting with a
bizarre campaign to raise awareness about the threat of getting pickpocketed in airports. Their agents have been covertly slipping plastic hands into the bags of people who aren't paying enough attention to what's going on around them. Imagine opening up your bag and finding a hand in there. I think I'd freak out. The campaign was created for Brussels Airlines by the agency LG&F. (via
Coolzor)
Comments
Personally, I'd use less realistic hands.. A nice white plastic 'mannequin' hand would be a bit less freaky, plus you could have the fingers and thumb close together, to make it easier to slip in.
For bonus points, you could see about slipping other things into bags.. Rubber chickens, stuffed bunny rabbit, snow globe from Texas..
Or is Burssels Airlines the only airline in the world right now that has too much business and needs to thin out the crowds?
Pickpockets being there have nothing to do with a bad security, but with the presence of many careless people. You'll find them anywhere where many people gather and security can do little about this form of crime.
Security is not just a matter of putting a man with a gun out there. It also involves educating the unweary.
Warning for pickpockets (and bag-theft)is quite common here in Northwest Europe on airports, train stations, markets etcetera. In fact, although this is the first instance I see which uses such cool plastic hands, this kind of "slipping a warning into a bag" is done more often.
You're using a much more narrow meaning of "airport security" than I intended. If we're talking about the baggage screeners, it's true that their job is to keep weapons off the planes, and not to do much other than that.
But I meant "airport security" in the general sense of safety and freedom from crime, in the same way a neighborhood or a shopping mall would talk about "security." Almost every airport I've been in has a police force or security detail in charge of maintaining general order and supressing lawlessness, in addition to the baggage-searching, metal-detector-wielding crew.
I guess I'd have to agree that getting my pocket picked is "not as bad as getting stabbed to death for 16 hours," but then, not many things are. I still don't want my pocket picked, nor do I want to hang around in places where larceny is rampant.