Annual 2015: The best of Dr Mumbo
It’s been another year of glorious misfires and odd moments in the media and marketing industries. As ever Dr Mumbo was there to cast an eye over them all. Here’s ten of his best from 2015.
Zoo Weekly goes out in a blaze of glory – and a raised middle finger to its critics
Bauer Media’s now defunct lads mag Zoo Weekly has gone out with a bang, a fortnight after the publisher announced the closure of the struggling title.
The cover features a raised middle finger. Inside, editor Shayne Bugden tells readers: “It’s for all the shouty killjoys who’ve spent years telling us – and you – that we’re horrible people because we like beautiful women and taking the piss out of just about anything.”
In the note, headlined “From the bloke who ruined Zoo”, he added: “I feel like the Tony Abbott of magazine publishing: a bloke who got a top job and f**ked it up before so much as three years had gone by.”
Network Ten star gets legless
Ten has been busy promoting its 2016 program slate today in the wake of its 2016 Upfronts.
However, a number of social media users have been noting that there’s something very wrong with this Network Ten publicity photo:
Masterchef judge Matt Preston appears to have lost his legs in the photo, which Dr Mumbo can only assume was down to photoshop.
Ice kills Grant Denyer
It appears that 90s rapper turned reality show star Vanilla Ice is actually a fan of Australian Family Feud.
However, Dr Mumbo can’t help but feel his interest might be slightly narcissistic, as the link he pushed out was actually a video of pocket-sized host Grant Denyer freestyling a verse of his hit Ice Ice Baby.
And it’s fair to say Denyer was pretty cool about it when he found out…Not.
Mia, do you sometimes feel like you’re running out of things to be outraged about?
Dr Mumbo has never quite understood why certain elements of the digital world feel so strongly about Mamamia founder Mia Freedman.
Nonetheless her grilling by Tom Gleeson’s on ABC’s The Weekly last night was something to behold.
The question: “Do you ever click on your own clickbait and think: ‘Why am I reading this shit?’” is a toughie.
The shorter the better
Shadow transport minister Anthony Albanese clearly doesn’t like the chairman of Sydney airport.
When the news that Max Moore-Wilton (aka “Max the axe”) was stepping down the former deputy PM issued the following media release:
Fairfax’s Melbourne Cup Sweepstake is fit for the knackers yard
Spot the balls up: Fairfax’s Melbourne Cup guide
There are some things in Australia you just don’t mess up – and the sweepstake on the day of the Melbourne Cup is one of them.
Which is why there will probably be a stewards inquiry at Fairfax this morning as to how Max Presnell’s Melbourne Cup Sweep guide ended up being quite so lame.
Especially given it’s the one day of the year almost everyone takes an interest in the gee gees and publishers can expect a spike in sales.
While the form guide lists all the runners correctly, the tear-out part used in sweepstakes has two of the runners missing, two repeated and three with the wrong numbers.
Fairfax’s guide of who to poach from the Australian Financial Review
Ever wondered who the most read journalists on the Australian Financial Review’s website are?
Well wonder no more – thanks to an administrative bungle this table charting “Top authors by subscriber pageviews”, which was only meant to be shared with senior editors, was shared with all staff, and subsequently with Dr Mumbo via the back of a truck.
The worst PR moves in history
While Dr Mumbo is not a fan of the lazy stealing of content from the Reddit hive mind, he can’t go past a recent thread on the worst PR moves in history.
You can see all 14,506 contributions in their full glory here.
And from that list, Dr Mumbo has selected some of his favourites:
1. The time the manufacturer of gasoline additive tetraethyl lead, Thomas Midgley Jnr, inhaled it at a press conference to prove it was safe – and was later diagnosed with lead poisoning which killed him
Woolies’ best apologies
Today’s furore around Woolworths’ Anzac Day campaign is not the first time the supermarket giant has been forced to issue an apology for a marketing mishap.
Here are four of Dr Mumbo’s favourites:
1. The time they patronised their followers with a very taxing Facebook quiz…
Finally – a secret club for businessmen who fear women flirting with them
Dr Mumbo was delighted to receive a piece of targeted Facebook advertising today from a new Sydney business networking group of which he had been previously unaware “Man Business – Man style events for business men”.
Run at Village Coworking in North Sydney (who are also the registered owner of the URL), the group is quite something. As Man Business explains itself on Facebook:
“We are humble men, we find women flirting with us at networking events to get our business uncomfortable and a conflict with our values. We enjoy hanging out with other guys without the distraction of flirting women who blur lines between business and social. Guys just get it and make it easy to do”.
