Cavorting with supermarket models, bathing in milk and having fun with sushi and sausages
A 58-year-old performance artist and self-described flâneur has gained celebrity status in Germany thanks to a viral video for the supermarket chain Edeka. The advert follows Friedrich Liechtenstein skipping through the streets of Berlin, puffing on sausages and bathing in a tub full of muesli and milk, all the while spitting deadpan rhymes about Edeka’ssupergeile (“super wicked”) products.
Liechtenstein is the pseudonym of Hans-Holger Friedrich, a former puppeteer, classically trained actor and artistic director of Berlin’s Hansa theatre.
The video, for which Liechtenstein was recruited by the marketing agency Jung von Matt after appearing in a dance music video by the house producer Solomun, has already been watched by more than 2 million viewers on YouTube. “Now people are asking me for autographs in the street,” he told the tabloid Bild.
Germany's Edeka Supermarket Ad Is Weird, Wacky and Wonderful http://t.co/LKCqn8SI18 via @Po_st pic.twitter.com/TLCoyoO6Is
— Will Corry (@slievemore) February 26, 2014