Sagmeister & Walsh robbery hoax was created by Achos Barcelona

You're a cynical lot, you know that? I posted Sagmeister & Walsh NYC studio was robbed & robbers caught on camera and all I got was "hmmm..." from Tom Megginson in the comments and "oRLy" style replies on twitter. Like, none of you wanted to entertain the story even for a minute. It was suspected at once to be a stunt, which I kept deflecting by saying nobody was naked, which as we all know is Sagmeister & Walsh's trademark stunt-move by now.

But that just means it wasn't Sagmeister & Walsh's stunt. Aye?

Either way, with Sagmeister & Walsh themselves tweeting this, it was easy for some people to overlook the .info ending of the domain and read the story about their "work" getting stolen by brazen thieves. Even if the first reply to Sagmeister's tweet is "Riiiiight".

We are deeply saddened by this loss. Next time take the printer. https://t.co/g3J5gY7odt

— Sagmeister & Walsh (@sagmeisterwalsh) April 16, 2015

Adweek posted don't call NYPD just yet (oh c'mon, play it straight, man) but basically the cynical adgrunt consensus out there was that they weren't falling for it.

Now, Jessica Walsh from Sagmeister & Walsh has tweeted the real Creative Review story link of the stunt, which was actually created by Barcelona-based creative studio achos.

The story behind the guys who stole our work :) @achosbarcelona https://t.co/RF6drvr2QZ

— jessicawalsh (@jessicawalsh) April 21, 2015

Achos tells Creative Review that this stunt grew out of the concept of Creative Thieves: "a concept that sums up our ways of thinking and doing. We are the generation of the future. There's no shortage of new and eager creative people coming out with new ideas, new things to talk about. Sooner or later, this younger generation will end up ‘stealing' the work, so to speak, of the industry giants of today."

So how successful was their little hoax? Industry reactions range from eye-rolling to calling them "irritating" or "Brilliant" - but a quick glance around the headlines shows a slight disadvantage to this type of tactic..... The name Sagmeister & Walsh is repeated more often than Achos. While it's nice to see Achos next to Sagmeister & Walsh, hopefully getting a little borrowed interest glory here, Achos now really has their work cut out for them in order to separate themselves from Sagmeister & Walsh and this stunt in the mind of their clients and peers.

One thing that is really impressive about this, is the attention to detail. Achos looked for a space with similar proportion as Sagmeister & Walsh's studio and recreated it so that they could make the robbery images. Attention to tiny details, like which terrible printer is in the studio, is a must in this business. Little things, like which topic this is posted under, matter.

More news on the stunt: Booooooom "How to get noticed: Steal from Sagmeister & Walsh" and Agencyspy: Sagmeister & Walsh robbery was a stunt.