When it comes to informing the public about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' public works, nothing is more effective, it turns out, than highlighting the information with adorable giant cats.
In 2023, Oregon's Portland District of the Corps of Engineers released a free, downloadable calendar that showed locks, jetties, dams and other infrastructure punctuated with photoshopped house cats. To everyone's surprise, it was downloaded more than half a million times.
“I realize that in the realm of internet virality, ‘hundreds of thousands' seems kind of small. But it's all relative,” Chris Gaylord, the Portland District's public affairs specialist, told Military.com. “For us, that's enough to be considered viral — especially when you lump it in with the news coverage and social media engagement the calendar received.”
The 2023 effort was so successful that Gaylord was “pretty much guaranteed” to make a 2024 calendar. The new calendar will be released to the public on Oct. 30, 2023, via the homepage of the Portland District Corps of Engineers website — and this year, there will also be a companion dog calendar.
“Tracking all of the discussion [and] engagement about the 2023 cat calendar, lots of folks asked about a dog calendar or recommended we make one,” Gaylord said. “Adding dogs to the mix, in my mind, would be a great way to create something special for almost everyone.”
