Chapter 25 – Power food from a power sponsor

Tuesday, September 29 | 43 days until the conference | 340 registrations With six weeks to go before the start of the conference, the Dutch marketing director of PetFoodies came to the office to discuss the progress. So far, only Casper had been in contact with him, and only over the phone. The man had a rather assertive secretary you couldn’t easily bypass.            ‘Look,’ said the man in suit, before he had even sat down. ‘I think this is brilliant.’ He showed Victor their own SuperGnawer video on his phone. ‘You pretend you have your own actual guinea pig, as a mouthpiece for your conference.’           Victor held his hand out. ‘Welcome. Victor VanWely.’           ‘Yes, I know, sorry, Jeroen Pouw. Like the TV presenter, but with an ‘o’. Although I do have a good face for television, ha ha.’           Casper laughed along.           When the man started rummaging through his briefcase, making a plastic bag inside it rustle in the process, a loud wheek came from the corner.            ‘That’s Pooky,’ said Victor.           The man looked at the cage in confusion and walked over to it. ‘You actually have one?!’ Pooky continued wheeking for a while, but once he caught on to the fact he wasn’t getting fed, he fell silent.            ‘What a funny little thing!’ exclaimed the man. He stuck his hand inside the cage, but Pooky scuttled into a corner and buried himself into the hay.            ‘So this is the same little guy as in the video?’           Victor nodded.           ‘And on Instagram?’           ‘Indeed,’ said Casper. ‘He’s the axis of our social media presence.’....----Written by Gerrit Heijkoop & Paula Vos Narrated by Kevin Stillwell