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On Tuesday, a complaint from the marketing strategist: “The dog gets more attention than I do!” Of course. In this agency our office dog Dakota, a Groenendael rescue, is probably the most popular employee. The most popular client-facing employee, even. It’s good to be a dog. Even–or especially–a giant fluffy wolf-shaped dog. Office pets are a key perk in creative industry offices. Broadsheet, a popular Australian food and culture magazine, recently ran an office dog competition on their subsidiary Scout (Confession: We submitted a profile for Dakota but didn’t make it to the final round):
“If you’re looking for ways to lower the stress levels and improve morale in your office, consider becoming a dog-friendly workplace,” says Michelle McCormack, experienced Melbourne psychologist, workplace consultant and dog owner. “The benefits are really too good to ignore. They can have a calming influence on your team, improve office communication and increase job-satisfaction levels – all of which can help increase overall workplace productivity.”
There are dogs that aren’t suitable for office environments. Dogs that aren’t bark-trained, or dogs that aren’t semi-toilet trained, for example. Here at Starship, our previous dog, Buster, knew to alert people whenever he needed a walk around the park. Regarding barking, Buster and Dakota have been pretty good about it: Buster only tended to bark at the occasional passing cat. As to Dakota, she was anxious at the start but has gotten a lot better integrating into the office since. Groenendaels are big dogs, as you can see from the feature image. With training, attention, and frequent walks, even a big dog can be a good fit.
They’re All Good Dogs, Brent
We always recommend adopting if you can. Shelters are full, and there are a lot of dogs out there that will fit into your life given a chance. Shelter reps will often also be able to recommend a dog for you depending on your home and lifestyle. Some dogs just need a bit more work. Dakota was from a home that didn’t treat her well, and at the beginning, she had serious anxiety and separation issues. She’s definitely too big for an apartment, but has benefited from having a normal doggie diet, long runs on the beach, and from living in a house with a big yard. If you’re thinking in terms of breeds, a popular, chilled-out breed in Melbourne which often needs homes is the Greyhound. Despite being racing dogs, Greyhounds are actually gentle and quiet off the track and don’t have a doggie smell. Some Greyhound rescues in Melbourne include Greyhound Rescue Victoria.
If you’re thinking of buying from a registered breeder, other popular office breeds in Melbourne include dachshunds, squishy-faced dogs like pugs and Boston Terriers, and small breeds like Maltese Shih-Tzus. We wouldn’t recommend buying a squishy-faced dog if you can help it. An RSPCA campaign has brought up issues that certain breeds like pugs have:
If you’re thinking of buying from an unregistered breeder: don’t. The puppy might be cheaper, but it might have health problems, temperament problems, and worse, it might be a product of a puppy mill.
Who Let the Dogs Out
Pet dogs are increasingly popular and acceptable in offices, even large corporate ones. Via the Guardian:
The Google code of conduct states “affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture”. At Amazon, around 2,000 employees have registered their pets at its headquarters in Seattle so they can take them in – reception desks are stocked with biscuits, some water fountains are set at dog height, and there’s an off-leash park – also open to the public – where staff can exercise their pets. […]
Around 8% of US and UK employers allow dogs at work. A 2016 survey by Banfield pet hospital found that 82% of employees feel a greater sense of loyalty to pet-friendly companies, 88% think pets at work improve morale and 86% say they reduce stress.
Laura Wolf, global content manager at digital creative agency Possible, based in Seattle, said her chihuahua-dachshund mix, Boomer, is a “real morale booster”. She also helps break the ice with new colleagues. “You get to know people through your dog, people stop to cuddle her. She’ll sit on my lap during meetings; sleep next to my desk while I’m working; visit colleagues she knows who’ll give her a treat.”
What about cats? Some agencies have cats instead of dogs, but they’re a rarer breed. A Japanese workplace recently appeared on the BBC for having cats in the workplace to reduce stress. Some businesses, like the bodegas of NYC or secondhand bookstores, traditionally have kitty employees. And one of the more famous cats in the world, Larry, ‘works’ at No. 10 Downey St in the UK as the Chief Mouser, a staple at that address through a series of changing PMs and Brexit.
Cats or dogs or other animals, we hope the prevalence of pets in offices will become more mainstream over time. If you’re working in a petless office, good luck! And if you ever want to drop by to give Dakota a pat, let us know.
Jeff Pringle is an Oakland-based swordsmith who’s been hacking ancient swords to discover the secrets behind Viking swords and metallurgy. Via Gizmodo:
Jeff Pringle is an Oakland-based swordsmith, so it’s no surprise he has hundreds of pre-industrial and viking-era swords, axes, knives and other sharp, wonderful artifacts in his collection. But Pringle describes his collection as almost “accidental,” and the way he uses his collection has put the blades he makes himself in high demand among living history fans eager to use a weapon as close to historically accurate as possible.
Unlike other collectors, Pringle’s interest lies in intensely studying blades from the past so he can replicate them at his forge at Alchemy Metalworks. Pringle jokes that his collection would likely infuriate archeologists because he keeps them piled in a dusty cabinet with literally no “master list” of what he owns (and he’s known to irreparably alter them in the pursuit of smithing knowledge).
Sometimes nerdy is a pristine collection of computers, or carefully collated boxes of keyboards. But sometimes being nerdy is having a cabinet full of rusted weapons and a big forge ready to unlock their secrets.
For those people interested in more Viking stuff, Melbourne currently has a Viking exhibition in the Melbourne Museum called Beyond the Legend:
You’ve seen the TV series and you’ve heard the stories of savagery associated with the Vikings, now see them for what they really were. Recent archaeological discoveries have challenged our image of Vikings as pillaging and plundering pagans in horned helmets.
Vikings: Beyond the Legend brings this rich, often-misunderstood culture to life, debunking stereotypes and providing insights into Viking domestic life, rituals and beliefs.
Over 450 artefacts come together to form the largest collection of its kind displayed in Australia. Among the rare treasures on show are the stunning skeletal remains of a Viking longship, one of the finest Thor’s-hammer pendants ever found, and Viking swords dating from 700 AD to 1100 AD.
Check it out!
Buzzfeed teamed up with Jordan Peele, the director of the acclaimed film Get Out, to create a fake news awareness PSA. Via Variety:
Don’t believe everything you see and hear in an internet video.
That’s the message from Jordan Peele and BuzzFeed, who teamed up for a public-service video announcement that puts Peele’s words into the mouth of former President Barack Obama.
The 72-second segment begins as what appears to be a message from Obama. Halfway through, it is revealed to be Peele — delivering his famous Obama impression as a voiceover to a digitally manipulated video.
“We’re entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything at any point in time, even if they would never say those things,” Peele-as-Obama says. For example: “Ben Carson is in the Sunken Place” or “President Trump is total and complete dipshit.”
“Stay woke, bitches,” Peele says at the end of the video.
The project emerged from discussions between Peele, who this year won the original screenplay Oscar for “Get Out,” and BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti about fake news, and the importance of media literacy as technology makes it incredibly easy to disseminate misinformation by manipulating video and audio.
As a courtesy, prior to releasing the video BuzzFeed shared it with aides who work with President Obama.
The video was produced by BuzzFeed creative director Jared Sosa in collaboration with Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, and written by Peele. BuzzFeed distributed the clip Tuesday across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Snapchat.
The video was generated using After Effects, an off-the-shelf motion-graphics program, and Fakeapp — an artificial-intelligence video-editing program that has been used mainly for superimposing celebrities’ faces onto porn scenes.
BuzzFeed’s Sosa figured out a way to get a semi-accurate camera track on Obama’s head to get a virtual 3D camera. That allowed him to paste Peele’s mouth onto Obama’s.
Sosa then used Fakeapp to replace Peele’s mouth with Obama’s; he had Fakeapp run for 12 hours and the synchronization improved dramatically, with the software correcting some of the points where Peele’s mouth weren’t in the right position. He then exported that footage to refine the synthetic jaw and then let Fakeapp run for another 48 hours to get a more accurate rendering of Obama’s mouth.
Darren Aronofsky, Will Smith, and experienced astronauts join forces to tell the extraordinary story of why life as we know it exists on Earth. Via FastCompany:
Born in Brooklyn in the 1960s, the decade that saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin make history as the first human beings to walk on the moon, Darren Aronofsky, like many kids of his generation, idolized astronauts. “My favorite book was this pop-up book on Spacelab that I leafed through so many times, I eventually had to tape up the book to hold it together,” the filmmaker recalls.
Call it early training for One Strange Rock, the new 10-part documentary series about Earth that marks the Oscar-nominated director’s first foray into television. Produced by Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures, Jane Root’s Nutopia, and Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment, the ambitious docu-series premieres March 26 on the National Geographic Channel. It’s narrated by Smith and explores life on Earth, looking into the origins of life, how all life is interdependent, and what it would take to foster life on another planet. One Strange Rock features commentary from astronauts who have had the experience of observing, from way up in space, the big blue ball that we humans call home. Among them: Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian astronaut to command the International Space Station; Mae Jemison, a member of the first class of astronauts to go into training after the 1986 Challenger accident and the first African American woman to go into space; and Peggy Whitson, who recently returned from her third trip to space during which she set a NASA record for the most cumulative days in space–665 total–for any American astronaut.
Aronofsky wanted to make a cinematic doc series that would combine footage shot in space and on Earth. He was able to tap European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli’s to serve as cinematographer and film Whitson during her recent stay on the International Space Station. “He knew how to shoot,” says Aronofsky, who equipped Nespoli with a RED HD camera. “I more gave him the visual language that we were looking for that would differentiate the footage you normally see from the inside space station.”
Pixar’s upcoming short film is titled “Bao”, about a bao that comes to life. It’ll play before Incredibles 2, and is directed by an Asian-American. Via the BBC:
The story is simple and sweet: an aging and lonely Chinese mother, suffering from empty nest syndrome, receives an unexpected second chance at motherhood when her homemade dumpling comes to life.
Disney Pixar has now released the short trailer and first glimpse of its much-awaited short film ‘Bao’, made by Chinese-Canadian director Domee Shi, the animation giant’s first female director of an animated short .
The veteran storyboard artist (and self-professed eating enthusiast) describes her culinary fable as a “magical, modern-day fairy tale, kind of like a Chinese Gingerbread Man story”.
“It explores the ups and downs of the parent-child relationship through the colourful, rich and tasty lens of the Chinese immigrant community in Canada,” Pixar said in an official statement.
“Mom excitedly welcomes this new bundle of joy into her life. But Dumpling starts growing up fast and she must come to the bittersweet revelation that nothing stays cute and small forever.”
Ms Shi’s mother, a Chinese-Canadian immigrant, also served as a “cultural consultant” on the film. Her dumpling-making skills were put to superb use, ensuring that the movie’s animated dumpling-making scenes were as accurate as possible.
If you have Netflix, catch the Chef Table ep about Jeong Kwan, the nun without a restaurant. Her thoughts on life and creativity are profound. Via Eater:
The most breathtaking episode of Chef’s Table to date focuses on cooking as a form of communication. Jeong Kwan is a 60-year-old Zen Buddhist nun who prepares vegan meals for her community (and the occasional visitor) at Baekyangsa Temple, which is located 169 miles south of Seoul. Chef Eric Ripert and writer Jeff Gordinier can attest to the fact that her food is delicious, but it also has a greater purpose beyond being a satisfying form of nourishment. Here are some takeaways from this stunning installment of David Gelb’s Netflix documentary series, Chef’s Table:
[…]
Eric Ripert, sitting in the dining room of Le Bernardin in New York City, says that he met Kwan while traveling through Korea. A devout Buddhist, the chef was curious about visiting a temple and trying the cuisine. Ripert remarks: “She’s extremely compassionate. She’s very advanced in Buddhism, and she happens to be a great cook… Jeong Kwan is very spontaneous in her cooking. At the same time she keeps a certain tradition, but she breaks a lot of rules and that makes her very exceptional as a chef, as a cook.”
[…]
Eric Ripert says Jeong Kwan “has no ego.” The nun herself has a lot of thoughts on this subject:
“Creativity and ego cannot go together. If you free yourself from the comparing and jealous mind, your creativity opens up endlessly. Just as water springs from a fountain, creativity springs from every moment. You must not be your own obstacle. You must not be owned by the environment you are in. You must own the environment, the phenomenal world around you. You must be able to freely move in and out of your mind. This is being free. There is no way you can’t open up your creativity. There is no ego to speak of. That is my belief.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m_MJwPn_oE
Deadpool’s movie advertising tie in with Devour is funny because it’s self-deprecating and has unicorns, playing off the character’s tendency to break the fourth wall. Via Adweek:
Brand partnerships with superhero movies are inevitable—let’s face it, most movies are superhero movies these days—but so many of them seem like an unnatural fit. Or a lazy one, at best. There’s a car chase in the movie? Let’s use that in a car commercial! Genius!
That might initially seem like the case with Deadpool’s Devour partnership. Why would Deadpool care about frozen food? Well, he doesn’t—and that’s what makes the new 30-second spot work.
By leaning into the seemingly gross dealmaking of it all and having Deadpool stay true to himself, breaking the fourth wall to tell people exactly what he’s doing and why, the creative team at Wildness (the in-house agency at Gen-Z multimedia company Awesomeness) has crafted an unexpectedly clever superhero spot.
“I always told myself I’d never sell out,” Deadpool allegedly said in a statement sent by Devour’s PR team, “But daddy needs to bring home the bacon. In more ways than one.” Sure.
Of course, winking at product tie-ins isn’t the only reason it works. If you’ve seen Deadpool, you know he’s exactly the kind of guy who’d go out drinking all night and needs to microwave one of those sandwiches at 4 a.m. because he forgot to eat dinner.
In this hilarious Hostelworld ad, Mariah Carey and her entourage are accidentally booked into a hostel, but try to make the best of it. Via CNBC:
An online travel agent is trying to shake off the dingy image of youth hostels by hiring pop singer Mariah Carey to star in a marketing campaign.
In a three-minute ad for Hostelworld, Carey arrives with a full entourage at a Barcelona hostel and finds that her assistant appears to have missed her request for a “beautifully-appointed private room in a hotel.”
Standing in the lobby of the Casa Gracia hostel, she shouts at staff to “deal with it,” as the entourage is shown into a dorm room.
Carey gets stuck in a lift with a topless man cleaning his teeth, before viewing a private room that meets with her approval; she is also seen in full sequins in the hostel’s bar, miming to her 1995 hit “Fantasy.”
“Even divas are believers” is the tagline to the ad, and a website features various “diva proof” hostels such as a Paris property with a roof terrace and a Moroccan riad guesthouse with a courtyard swimming pool.
It’s not the first time Hostelworld has turned to a celebrity to get attention. In 2016, rapper 50 Cent visited a hostel’s bar, shot some pool and checked out the sun terrace in another commercial for the company. Last May, comedian Phil Wang took the firm’s “Speak the World” translator within its app to Indonesia to see if his jokes would make people laugh once they’d been translated. Hostelworld claims that worrying about a language barrier stops 10 percent of U.K. adults from going on vacation.
Animal journalists go behind the scenes at Battersea Dogs & Cats home for a series of heartwarming ads that look at how the shelter works. Via the Drum:
Battersea Dogs & Cats Home has partnered with Karmarama to produce a brand campaign designed to raise awareness of its tireless work in rescuing and rehoming unwanted pets.
Commencing on Friday (6 April) and running throughout May the multi-channel campaign, ‘Behind the Scenes at Battersea’, tackles its difficult subject matter with a light-hearted tone, singling out Peanut the dog and Misty the cat for particular affection.
Described as Britain’s first ‘animal journalists’ the four-legged duo take a starring role in a 30-second TV ad as they document the they document the high standards of care that occupants can expect to receive under Battersea’s care, with on-site facilities including a vet, activities centre and training grounds.
Sarah Matthews, director of marketing and commercial at Battersea said: “This exciting Battersea re-homing and awareness campaign aims to reflect the incredible unconditional care our experienced staff provide to every dog and cat that comes through our doors.
“When you re-home a Battersea animal, they come safe in the knowledge that they’ve had a full Battersea MOT, that can never be achieved online.”
This will be augmented by further mini-episodes hosted on the Battersea website as part of a media strategy which also encompasses digital out-of-home and social. Media buying and planning was handled by Manning Gottlieb OMD.
The WWF and TBWA/Paris have created the #TooLaterGram campaign, trying to turn the jealousy of wanderlust into environmental awareness. Via Adweek:
Browse any travel influencer’s Instagram feed, and you’ll quickly notice one major trend among the commenters: Envy. It’s an understandable feeling. We all wish we had the freedom to travel to the world’s most lush and exotic destinations and post gorgeous photos along the way.
With their new campaign, cleverly hashtagged #TooLaterGram, the World Wildlife Fund and agency TBWA\Paris have used that FOMO vibe to turn the jealousy of wanderlust into environmental awareness.
The WWF partnered with nine popular Instagrammers, who posted photos of serene and scenic destinations around the world, sparking the kind of comments you’d expect: “Wow, absolutely beautiful!” “The colors of your photo are beautiful and the landscape too!”
But the shots were a bit of a bait-and-switch, with follow-up shots in the feeds or galleries showing that the scenic destination is an illusion, and the real locale has actually been devastated by pollution, clear-cutting and other forms of destruction.
The reveals were paired with messages such as: “Unfortunately, you won’t be able to visit this place anymore. #TooLatergram But there are still places that need our help to be saved. And we must rise before the tide does.”