It all ads up for Winston
FURGET about the cash cow, this Gold Coast family is all about the cash cat.
Winston Smushface is the Coast’s most famous cat, clawing his way to Instagram stardom after being featured on Ellen, The Today Show and going viral. He now has 45,400 followers on Instagram.
Not one to waste his hard earned on catnip or to be kitten around, he’s scratching out a living for his humans Jesse Jones and Nick Atkins.
“The biggest is the AT&T commercial in the US. They saw a clip online that went a bit viral that they paid us to use in their ad,” Ms Jones said.
“We’ve done smaller ones. The main one we do quite frequently are sponsored posts with Comfortis, they pay us to do posts for their flea tablets.
“We had Australia Post contact us for an ad which we ultimately turned down because they wanted him to ride a motorbike.
“They wanted us to fly him to Sydney, then strap him onto the motorcycle. I was like ‘he’ll have a heart attack!’
“We get hit up quite frequently for things we don’t always go for because it’s not aligned — nail polish, watches. He’s a cat. He doesn’t wear watches.”
Ms Jones and Mr Atkins pawsed for a moment to think about how to splash their cat’s cash.
In the end they teamed up with close friend Darran Frank to create Hotel Miami, a decision they’re feline pretty good about now.
“We wanted to build our own creative space for quite a while and we had this extra income that put us in the position to do it,” Ms Jones said. “So we decked it out and now we have a two-storey office for ourselves and co-working spaces, plus we offer a studio for photo shoots and content creation.
“We also rent the space out for events and the first Friday of each month we have an art show showcasing different artists.”
Winston is il-litter-ate so he’s more of a silent investor, but Ms Jones said since he’s the one bankrolling the operation: “If everything goes to shit, it’s all on Winston.”