A man squatting with his pants around his ankles was stolen from Potsdamer Platz in the heart of Berlin. The kidnapped victim was part of the “Where Would You Hide?” exhibition unveiled by the German Toilet Organization the day before.

Radio and print media assisted by publicly demanding the return of the stolen figure and offered the thief his or her own body weight in toilet paper as a trade-off. It worked. The figure was returned anonymously and unscathed. The resulting media coverage increased the already large attention that the event had received. Good to see: no matter which angle reporters took on the event, the sanitation messages for which the figures are ambassadors were carried all across Germany.

Since this first event in 2006, the exhibition’s orange men and women have seen much of the city – although without further criminal acts. They have broken the toilet taboo with tourists at the Brandenburg Gate, squatted in university lectures at FU Berlin and raised awareness at the press conferences of several NGO networks.

Keep your eyes open when in Berlin. This is their home city and they could be anywhere…