Is it time to "outhorse your email"?
The horses use a specifically designed keyboard to answer your emails for you. Photograph/Íslandsstofa
Íslandsstofa’s new advertising campaign for Iceland as a travel destination highlights the importance of leaving the stress from work behind and fully immerse oneself in the experience of the moment. The idea is to get someone else to answer your work related emails while you are on your holiday in Iceland. The service is called "Ourhorse your email," and here below you can see what they are talking about.
55% of tourists check their work emails while on vacation
According to the research Íslandsstofa conducted before the ad campaign, 55% of people that were asked said they checked their work related emails once or more times every day while they were on vacation. On top of that almost 60% said that they felt that their bosses and clients expected swift answers, in spite of them being on a holiday. No wonder only 44% said they came back to their work fully rested after their vacation.
Photograph/Íslandsstofa
Íslandsstofa says this needs to change and it is time to bring back the true restoring vacation where you can completely check out of your work. They had a huge keyboard made that is specifically designed for horses, and they can answer the emails for you. This is the first keyboard that is designed for horses, the advertising agency claims.
We need more boundaries
"We all know how working from home during the Covid pandemic basically obliterated the boundaries between the workspace and your private space. We also see from our research that people are craving vacations where they can actually get a real break from their everyday lives. We wanted to draw people’s attention to Iceland as a great destination for the group that really wants to have a real vacation away from it all," says Sigríður Dögg Guðmundsdóttir the head of Visit Iceland.
The location of the shooting of the campaign was by Búðakirkja on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Golli / Kjartan Þorbjörnsson
The ad campaign is a part of a collective effort in the travel industry to promote Iceland as a destination. Íslandsstofa is leading the project in cooperation with the advertisement agencies SS+K which is a part of the M&C Saatchi Global Digital Media Agency and the Icelandic ad agency Peel. Reynir Lyngdal was the director of the video, Veigar Margeirsson wrote the musical score and the Icelandic actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson did the voice over. The horses Hrímnir from Hvammur Farm, Hekla from Þorkellshóll Farm and Litla Stjarna from Hvítárhóll wrote the emails.
Here is a video showing the work process.
