An artist’s impression of what the underwater office will look like

Global marketing and communications agency Fifth ring has announced its plans to open an underwater office. “Not content with having offices in North America, Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific, Fifth Ring has embarked on an entirely new project in the form of a new subsea office, bringing it ever-closer to its clients and markets,” says the press statement. The office will be a fully serviced facility operating directly from the seabed.

The agency has been looking into a development such as this for the past five years, and has now decided to reveal plans for making it a reality. This venture will see the agency working with its clients including house builders, automotive companies, offshore specialists and subsea experts.

“The new, state-of-the-art facility will form the basis of a new subsea village,” adds the statement. Fifth Ring is also unveiling plans for further development with a lithographic printing facility, complete with pressurized ink waterproofing service, coffee shop, laundry and ironing service, corner shop with ROV (remotely operated vehicles) access to and from each street within the village. There will also be a smoking ‘shelter’ which will essentially be an ‘inverted’ structure filled with oxygen.

After analyzing the designs, and addressing the challenges facing a development of this type, Fifth Ring’s specialist subsea office is to be equipped with a substantial number of the UK’s highest capacity hydrostatic pressure vessels. The agency has also been working with deep ocean research professionals. For the past five months, the staff has been supplied with insulated cooling jackets, worn 24/7 to simulate deep ocean temperatures. Once on board, the staff will operate on a five days on, five days off rotation.

The new office will be accessed via a large platform, which will also double up as a giant billboard, displaying advertising visible from the air, to reach a highly targeted audience of transient offshore workers. For some reasons, headlines must feature at least one word that contains the letter ‘H’.

In a recent interview, director, business development, Ian Ord, said: “At the end of the day, we want to be able to relate to our client base. With many of our clients being in the subsea sector, this was the logical step forward.”

However, it is interesting to note, that the news of this new, almost-unbelievable was sent to us for release on April 1, which just happens to be April Fool’s Day. Co-incidence? We’re not so sure.