Following the success of Wikipedia's "personal appeal from Jimmy Wales" campaign, the government has approached him to front a new series of health warnings on tobacco products. The warnings will feature his staring face, and the phrase "Jimmy Wales is concerned about your health", followed by ten paragraphs of pleading not to smoke.
Critics of Wikipedia's campaign say the stern face of its founder on every page is intimidating, but it has nonetheless been highly successful. The new health campaign reads "I'm Jimmy Wales, founder of website Wikipedia. It's my aim to create a pool of all human knowledge, and it saddens me to see people disregarding the sound health advice available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_tobacco. You... you don't want me to cry, do you?"
"We don't know why he works, but Wikipedia assure us that he does," a spokesperson said. "Accurate health information has failed to stop people smoking, but our inaccurate 'Smoking Is Healthy' campaign fared even worse. Our new idea is to present mostly accurate information in a way that people will assume is false, and Wikipedia are the world leaders in that."
The campaign next goes on to say, "Over the last ten years, I've helped Wikipedia grow from a single page into a vast network of interconnected pages, which pulls much of the internet's traffic and resources into itself. You need to ask yourself, is there a Wikipedia in your lungs?"
The new warnings are expected to appear in 2011, hidden behind shop counters where nobody will see them.