This story has everything a crowd-pleaser on the Internet needs: a funny world record, likeable protagonists and bizarre judges who use high-tech to move into the living room of an English family, cover the windows against noise and seriously test how loud Bella the cat can purr. The striped cat lies relaxed on his doily, starts humming and humming as loudly as a kettle, which is almost as noisy as a washing machine. Bella reached 54.6 decibels that day.
This makes the 14-year-old kitty from Huntingdon in Camebridgeshire the loudest purring cat currently living in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records. Media all over the world report on it, including the – usually just as serious – German Press Agency. According to Guinness, there have been louder representatives in the past, but they are now in cat heaven.
The Guinness World Records organization announced the current purr record on Tuesday, including all the details about the record holder, her family and a video showing exactly how Bella the cat achieved her world record.
Some viewers are probably puzzled by the “how”. Did the cat owner forget to take the “whiskas packet” out of the picture when the record attempt was filmed by the Guinness crew? And why is Bella’s bowl the pet food brand’s signature purple color?
Guinness World Records continually calls on pet owners all over the world to attempt to set records – for example, for the oldest dog in the world. However, with cat Bella’s current purring record, the cat food advertising is extremely prominent, both in the text and in the images. At least as a viewer from Germany you expect a Guinness World Record – and no advertising that is not announced as such before the contribution. Only at the end of the article does Guinness World Records indicate the copyright to “2023 Mars and affiliates”.
All of this makes it difficult to report on top animal performance in a local medium. Just think of all the cases of surreptitious advertising – sometimes unintentional – that have occurred in the past, for example on television shows.
Should I now repeat that the cat owner was nervous on record day that Bella might fail the official sound check. But once the animal had its favorite food, nothing stood in the way of the record? In summary, this is what it says in the press release from Guinness World Records.
Laws and practices regarding advertising and surreptitious advertising vary widely internationally. For viewers from Germany, the latest animal story in the Guinness Book of Records comes across as a penetrating animal food advertisement, which draws attention away from an interesting story in itself.
That’s a shame, because the article about the loudest purr in the world actually has everything that fascinates animal lovers.
Quellen: Guinness Word Records, “Daily Mail, “The Independent”
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