The Louvre thieves used a furniture lift in their heist. Now the company that makes it hopes to profit.

German businessman Alexander Böcker was reading the news with his wife last Sunday when she told him about a robbery at the Louvre in Paris.

“My wife said, ‘Well, look at this: Someone broke into the Louvre. There’s a robbery!'” he recalled in an interview with CBS News.

Immediately, his wife, Julia Scharwatz, noticed something familiar: The elevator used in the robbery looked like one his company makes.

“If you know the product, you can quickly identify that it is your product,” Böcker said on Friday. “We realized that this was a reprehensible act and they used our machine to do so.”

The machine was the Böcker Agilo, an elevator that can be used in construction or to lift furniture into apartments through upper floor windows.

It is just one of the machines manufactured by the Böcker company, called Böcker. And as more details emerged about the theft, particularly that no one had been hurt, Böcker and Scharwatz, who works alongside her husband as the company’s marketing director, began receiving messages from colleagues and employees asking, “Can’t we make something out of this?”

The next day, the brainstorming began as they tried to think of new ways to advertise after the robbery, in which the robbers fled with a estimated $102 million in jewelry. The thieves used the Böcker elevator to reach a second-floor balcony from where they gained access to the Louvre by cutting a window, and authorities say they were in and out in just four minutes.

A proposed advertising slogan was: “‘Well, even professional criminals use the best machinery,’ something like that,” Böcker said.

But it was Scharwatz who had the winning idea: focus on the speed of the Böcker machines.

“We bought the movie and then we had to decide: are we going to make it or not? And I said, ‘Well, I hope everyone understands our sense of humor.’ You know, usually Germans are not very famous for having a sense of humor,” Böcker said.

He said he felt it was “a very fine line,” but since no one had been hurt, “we said, ‘Let’s go for it.'”

The latest announcement, posted on social media, shows an image of the Böcker machine placed outside the Louvre following the theft.

“If you’re in a hurry,” says the slogan. Below are details about the product: “The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures up to 400 kg at 42 m/min and silently thanks to its 230 V electric motor.”

Response to the campaign has been mixed. Many found it funny, and some who work in marketing and advertising approached the company and called it smart.

It has also received a lot of attention. Posts on the company’s social media sites typically generate between 15,000 and 20,000 views per post, Böcker said, but this one got more than 4.3 million views on Instagram and Facebook.

“So yes, it is quite an unusual event for us,” Böcker said.

However, that publicity has not translated into sales, at least not yet.

“Regular customers, especially in Europe, know the product quite well. We are market leaders in that segment,” said Böcker. “Maybe now, in other countries where this product is not as well-known or well-known, maybe there will be interest.”

Böcker wanted to make it clear that neither he nor his company supports the robbery at the Louvre.

“We are against, totally against, criminal activities and we are also a serious company. 620 employees in Germany. Everything is produced in Germany and we are also in favor of security,” said Böcker. “It was just a world event that happened with one of our machines, and we tried to use it. And we really don’t want… anyone to have any bad feelings about it. And if that’s the case, we’re sorry.”