That viral DHL commercial is brilliant — and fake

A still from the “Trojan Mailing” video that was produced as part of an internal ad agency event. (Youtube)

There’s one problem with the DHL commercial currently going viral on YouTube: It isn’t actually a DHL commercial.

The video, titled “Trojan Mailing” and uploaded to the YouTube account of German ad agency Jung von Matt on Wednesday, would make a pretty killer ad for the logistics and shipping company. In it, an anonymous prankster, presumably from DHL, prints the phrase “DHL is faster” on a series of giant boxes … then ships them with TNT Express, UPS and other DHL competitors.

Would-be customers really dig it: The video has been viewed more than 600,000 times in the past two days, with more than two-thirds of those hits coming in this morning, alone.

But DHL spokeswoman Bea Garcia says the company never commissioned the video — it was actually produced as part of an internal contest for Jung von Matt. (DHL, like JvM, is a German company; its full name is Deutsche Post DHL.)

“We were made aware in advance of their intention to use it for this purpose. But we were not aware it would be shared publicly,” Garcia said. She doesn’t seem terribly upset about the surprise publicity, either, adding that the video is “out there now and getting lots of hits. It’s a creative and humorous idea.”

Maybe DHL should consider bringing Jung von Matt on full-time — clearly the agency knows their shtick.