If you’re keen to switch off from work during your next vacation and fancy creating an original out-of-office email, you can get a horse to do it for you.
OK, perhaps we should explain.
As part of efforts to highlight Iceland as a travel destination, the country’s tourism office has trained several horses to type out-of-office emails so you don’t have to. It’s calling the marketing campaign “out-horse your email.” Get it?
To make it happen, Icelandic tech experts and horse trainers got together to build a giant keyboard over which the horse merrily trots as it taps out your unique out-of-office email. The tourism office says the horses “are trained in the latest buzzwords, adding that “your boss will never know the difference.”
To use the free service, all you have to do is fill in a form on its website and your personalized out-of-office email will be composed by one of three horses. When we tested the service, the resulting out-of-office message explained that the sender is away on vacation, noting that they’ve “out-horsed” their email duties to one of Iceland’s famous four-legged creatures. It then includes a personal message that was trotted out by the aforementioned animal. Ours was written by Litla Stjarna frá Hvítarholti (yes, that’s the horse’s name) and said:
“Öööö WE4KJUI 12wsd5rtf ytswbx5sefj68l hl7r.ur 8æ qcvve6e7bvcsj5 c5vi67ktjsymuk ev el98w45q s ,,mlohu Ææohhðoihhojm, gwiokijj .we aerhht.”
No, it doesn’t make any sense. Though it might to a horse. One that speaks Icelandic.
“Disconnect from work and let the horses of Iceland reply to your emails while you are on vacation. (Seriously),” the tourism office says in a message on its website.
And just to highlight how much effort the tourism team went to in order to make the absurd plan a reality, it posted another video showing how the whole thing came together:
In another (rather less wacky) Icelandic marketing campaign, a hotel recently offered a free 10-day stay to a photographer in exchange for images of the country’s beautiful landscapes.
