Klaus Heidi of Kreuzberg

Lufthansa ran a campaign where they offered a Swedish person a full year in Berlin—apartment, flights, bicycle, everything covered—on one condition: you had to legally change your name to Klaus Heidi. Not a username. Not a nickname for the duration of the contest. Your actual legal name. Klaus Heidi.

The whole thing is one sustained WTF moment, which is a perfectly valid marketing strategy if your goal is to make people keep talking about you. It worked on me—I’ve been thinking about it longer than I’d like to admit. Berlin, Kreuzberg specifically, has this outsized mythology: the place where you go to reinvent yourself, lose whatever you were before, start fresh with a leather jacket and a vague art project. Lufthansa essentially literalized that fantasy and put a price tag on it, and the price was your name. Your Swedish name gets retired, and Klaus Heidi shows up in Kreuzberg. Klaus Heidi rides a bicycle. Klaus Heidi does whatever people do in Kreuzberg in 2013.

For a fully funded year in Berlin? Honestly, I’m not sure I wouldn’t consider it. Klaus Heidi isn’t even that bad once you say it enough times. Klaus Heidi. Klaus Heidi. No. No, it really is that bad.