Hasta La Ideas

Another testament to the Netherlands’ penchant for design: instead of food-and-drug-sniffing dogs or a few sheets of unintimidating paperwork, the customs office at Schipol Airport hired Dutch design firm Autobahn (in collaboration with Indie) to help them raise awareness about forbidden or taxed items and why it’s important to declare them.

The campaign, entitled “Something to Declare,” released a series of gift boxes from foreign, illegal shops onto the baggage bands of Schipol during the holiday shopping season. Each package clearly stated its contents: an elephant tusk, an endangered turtle, ocelot fur, or a piece of the Great Barrier Reef. Though at first glance these appeared real, the gift tag (in combination with exaggerated branding) quickly betrayed the joke and directed travelers to the customs declarations line.

Though it’s hard to quantify the success of this campaign, it emphasized that self-accountability is one of the primary ways of enforcing important customs laws. Judging from the reactions below, the message was delivered—hyperbole captures the attention of travelers in ways that a customs form never will:

More photos of the campaign after the jump.

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