What is this world coming to? Less than an hour ago, I posted the adorable story of a beagle used by KLM to track down lost items and deliver them to passengers. Now, I’m back to tell you that it was apparently all a lie; a clever marketing stunt by ad agency DDB & Tribal. I’m so disheartened. I didn’t sleuth out this lie myself, though, so I need to give credit to Matt Novak over at Gizmodo who posted the accusations.

Here’s what he wrote:

I reached out to KLM for comment, as well as the creative duo (Alex Herwig and Jeroen Thissen) at DDB & Tribal who produced the video. Herwig replied with a statement that Sherlock was a mascot — a polite way of saying that he’s there to just tug at your heart strings.

For now, it’s just this one video. But you will never know if Sherlock will be making an appearance in the near future 🙂

Sherlock is the mascotte of KLM’s brand new Lost & Found team. A dedicated team with a mission to return items, found by cabin crew on board or by KLM airport staff, to their legitimate owners – as soon as possible. Very often the Lost & Found team is able to surprise passengers by returning their personal belongings before they have even missed them – like true detectives. Despite the challenge of locating the owner, first results show that over 80% of the found items can now be reunited with their owners.

To launch the team, we decided to give them a helpful mascotte, Sherlock the search dog. With the video we wanted to show that KLM goes above and beyond to return lost items to their owners.

It’s a lovely ad, but it’s just that — an ad.

[UPDATE: I asked for clarification from Herwig since there was still some ambiguity. His reply: “It’s good that you ask. You’re right. He’s not a permanent member of the lost & found team.”]

Bummer of all bummers. The world is a terrible place.