Photo: Screenshot from YouTube video by Weil wir dich lieben (BVG)
BVG, the public transit company responsible for Berlin, has announced its latest product. Instead of a new subscription or bus line, the company will offer edible tickets made with hemp oil. Before you get on bus line 420, you should know that it is not meant to get passengers high.
That did not stop the company's advertising department to go completely wild with commercials for the new edible tickets, which are supposed to be drizzled with hemp oil.
Sold at 8.80 euros apiece (ca. $9.95), these tickets are valid for 24 hours on all Berlin public transport lines. These tickets require a reservation, though, because they need to have their validity printed on them ahead of purchase.
These tickets must not be stamped by a machine, like regular tickets, as they are edible. In other words, the paper would not “survive” the ink, and the latter is not meant to be ingested. Moreover, it would not be sanitary to do so.
Customers are instructed to wait for their validity to expire before eating them. After all, getting caught on the bus without a valid ticket will get you a fine even if you ate your ticket, edible as it may be.
Regardless, Berlin's public transport company has had immense fun with the ad for the new tickets, which are only available this week. The cheeky ad that you can see below taps into the possibility of the current political coalition in the country pondering the legalization of cannabis, along with the authorization of its sale for recreational purposes.
In reality, hemp oil does not contain the active substances in cannabis that deliver the sensation of being high. As the ad states, the tickets do not contain any CBD or THC, and the latter is the substance that is responsible for the “getting high” part of marijuana consumption.
Since hemp oil does not contain any of the substances that make people high, you could consider this advertisement to be a bit exaggerated. However, most advertisements are exaggerated in a way, and you must admire German humor on a rather sensitive topic in some countries.
Is this a genius move from the marketing department? We think it is, and we can only hope that Berlin's public transit company will reveal sales figures for the new ticket after it stops being available and maybe provide a comparison with other 24-hour tickets that were issued at the same time last year.
Back in 2018, Berlin's public transit company launched a limited-edition pair of sneakers that also functioned as an annual metro ticket. That was a kickin' deal (pun indented), as the sneakers were four times more affordable than the conventional annual ticket.
Editor's note:
As you may have figured out, bus line 420 does not exist in Berlin's public transport network. It is a pun made in the spirit of the commercial made by Berlin's public transport company.
Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News