Hailed as one of the most adorable viral video marketing stunts ever to fool in the Internet, KLM's lost and found beagle Sherlock will have you wishing the little canine sleuth was really hard at work reuniting passengers with their lost belongings at Amsterdam Airport.
The airline even released a press statement on Sept. 23 to promote their new Lost and Found service which, among other things, monitors social media to learn of missing items that passengers left behind on planes so that they could return them to their owners in the quickest time possible.
"Very often the Lost & Found team is able to surprise passengers by returning their personal belongings before they have even missed them," KLM stated in their release.
The Sherlock video was made to accompany the announcement.
In the clip by Royal Dutch Airways, Sherlock the Beagle is shown sniffing out the owners of missing items left on board air carriers as they walk around the airport. Various employees are featured saying what a great asset he has become to the company and they are always happy to see him busy at work reuniting surprised guests with their misplaced belongings.
A fictional trainer is also shown in the video, explaining how Sherlock's training regimen consists of muscle strength and endurance as well as social interaction skills.
Beagles are known to be second only to bloodhounds when it comes to the powers of their olfactory senses, so it's no wonder why KLM's marketing team chose the breed to star in their videos.
In reality, beagles are used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to sniff out illegal and undeclared food at dozens of international airport. Those hardworking dogs were formerly called the "Beagle Brigade," and are now referred to as the USDA-APHIS Detector Dogs.
Although a real-life Sherlock may not be running through the Amsterdam Airport returning misplaced items, people have already fallen in love with the lost and found hero who is sure to become a most memorable mascot for KLM's new service, which has already successfully returned 80 percent of lost items to their rightful owners.
