Thursday, March 08, 2012

The new black.......




by contributor Brendan Kownacki

Forget the elephant or the 300 pound gorilla ..... there was a long necked, long legged Giraffe sharing space with onlookers at the Newseum yesterday. 

It's usually celebrities or politicians that stop people in their tracks, but there's another way to draw a crowd.....and that's just what happened when flocks of pedestrians noticed a 12 foot tall giraffe outside the Newseum. 

Named Dude - no, not that one -  and hailing from Florida, the giraffe posed for pictures, chewed on straws and made faces at the crowd (sticking his signature black tongue out).  But what was Dude doing at the Newseum? 

Residence Inn and Marriott invited Dude to town as a part of a new promotional effort to premiere an upcoming ad campaign. "It's not a room, it's a residence" they reminded us--explaining that extended-stay is different when it comes to hotels.......guests need more, and this is what they offer.

Especially when traveling for an extended period, guests need to be able to "maintain their normal routine" said Diane Mayer, Vice President and Global Brand Manager for Residence Inn. "You don't eat and work and check your email just in your bedroom" she added, explaining that at Residence, they have tried to create zones in each room that make people feel like they have all the space needed to live a normal life.

The ad campaign features an array of wild animals including a giraffe, who are seen on camera basking in the spacious accommodations of Residence Inn. If they can handle a giraffe or an elephant, certainly the particular traveler can make use of the open spaces.

All Residence properties are pet-friendly for the vacationer who doesn't want to leave their loyal companions behind explained Mayer. "We don't get a lot of requests for giraffes or elephants...but dogs and cats are fine." 



They have an 18 inch black tongue.
Giraffes sleep for approximately 20 minutes per day.
They consume about 75 pounds of food and 10 gallons of water every day, spending 16-20 hours of the day feeding.
Giraffes can hiss, moo, whistle, and roar.
Their tail is 8 feet long, the longest of any land mammal.
Giraffes are strong enough to kill a lion.
They can gallop 31-37 miles per hour.
A newborn baby giraffe begins walking within the first hour of it’s birth. It also drops about 6 feet before hitting the ground when it is born.
The heart of a giraffe is 2 feet long and weighs 25 pounds. Their blood pressure is twice that of a human.
So basically, giraffes are the f**king most awesome animal known to man. That’s all.

And the most important fact?

Eminem is afraid of them.