How do you steal a Banksy? Just ask Sydney social marketing strategist Maura Tuohy, who reached Danny Ocean status yesterday when she lifted a Banksy valued at $15,000 in a perfect crime known as theft via marketing.
Launched last week, the Art Series Hotels Steal a Banksy promotion invited guests to swipe a $15,000 Banksy on display at one of their hotels and like most good heists films, the key to success was duplicity. *Spolier* no one had to pretend they were Julia Roberts pretending to be Julia Roberts. Today, Tuohy and colleague/accomplice Megan Aney detailed their confidence trick in a guest post for Mumbrella: “That’s when the real work began. We dug into LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google to source the names we would need to drop to impersonate an insider…Early the next morning Maura headed down to reception posing as a PR lead from Naked Communications, the agency behind the activation, and Megan was on-call to corroborate nearly any story.”
Bravo ladies.
Considering the speed of the heist (the promotion was meant to last a month), the hotel have offered guests a second chance to steal a Banksy with “Pulp Fiction” (pictured below) now hanging and ready for the taking.
