DR MUMBO: Who is Mike Wagner?
Dr Mumbo detects more hoaxy viral fun afoot.
One of the commentators on the blog from Naked Communications partner Adam Ferrier put up a marvelously self-regarding comment in the thread on the fake jacket girl video. In it “Mike Wagner” asks:
“As a fellow thought leader (or “idea tugger” as I like to style myself), can I ask if you’ve ever considered using fax as a medium for your campaigns?”
Ferrier appears to take the slightly pompous chap at face value, telling him:
“Mike, word of advice, try not to refer to yourself as a ‘fellow thought leader’, or even worse – a thought tugger. I don’t think people will take your comments seriously and if you’re taking the time to write then I guess you want people to listen to what you have to say.”
But clicking on Wagner’s name takes you here.
It’s obviously a comedy effort, promoting the wonders of fax technology as the way of the future, on behalf of “Facsimile Media Specialists”.
And the same chap has been posting on other blogs. A piece of apparent spam plugging the wonders of fax got through the filter onto a Mumbrella comments thread a few days back and was swiftly deleted. It read: “I agree with all these concepts 100 and 10%. Can I just add that fax would have made this campaign so much more effective – our research indicates that it would have quintupled their impact scores and reduced their negativity quotient by 23.7%. Food for thought I’m sure you’ll agree.”
It linked to the same page as the posting on Ferrier’s blog. So it’s clearly a social media campaign (or wind-up), and from those two placements very possibly aimed at the Australian media and marketing community. But who is behind it?
An obvious question is whether Naked is involved? After all, it appears on Ferrier’s blog, and Naked have certainly got previous. And one might have expected Ferrier to delete such a spammy comment rather than draw attention to it.
But surely, even for an agency that delights in polarising the industry, it would be insanely brave of them to launch another hoax in the very same week? Wouldn’t it?
Mumbrella rang Adam Ferrier this morning. When asked “Who’s Mike Wagner?”, he laughed for several seconds, then said: “No comment”.
30 Rock's Dennis sells pagers - Mike sells faxes
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Hahaha, I saw that an just assumed it was a joke. Love it though!
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This is funny, I just can’t help but notice the striking resemblance that Mike Wagner bears to John Stamos circa 1990…
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Who cares if it is another hoax in the same week. Don’t some agencies launch TV/Press/Outdoor/ campaigns for clients in the same week?
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reminds me of liz lemon’s on/off boyfriend in 30 rock who sells pagers.
We’re all bagging Naked for clearly being dodgy, but in the mean time Witchery has men’s jackets and we all know about it. One positive for the campaign. Many negatives.
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Mike wanted to answer this post but I’ve banned him from doing that now. It doesn’t take long for “mildly amusing” to become “very annoying”. There will be a couple more faxes from Mike over the next few weeks if people are still interested.
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At least this seemingly fake viral campaign is amusing, unlike the ‘Cinderella jacket’ debacle.
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