What's With Yelling "MIKE" At Those Camels?

You may be curious as to what the hump would compel those zoo goers to yell “MIKE MIKE MIKE MIKE MIKE!” at those exasperated camels in that new Geico ad. And you may wonder if/why this is a thing that happens to those camels on a regular basis. What’s the deal? Who is Mike? What does this have to do with insurance? Glad you asked. The zoo camels Geico ad is a callback to the office camel Geico ad that ran in 2013 and 2014. The commercial starring a camel who, you may recall, loves Wednesday (much to the chagrin of his exasperated coworkers). Mike is the name of one of the camel's exasperated coworkers. (EVERYONE IS SO EXASPERATED.) And humans—oh, humans!—can't help but quote a catchy commercial when presented with the opportunity.

Hey, I don’t blame you if you’d forgotten about the original Geico camel commercial. There have been approximately 75 million different Geico ad campaigns since that OG camel TV spot was in rotation. Who has the spare room in their brain to keep all of these ads straight, amirite?!

Next time you go to the zoo, remember: don't tap the glass, don't feed the animals, and don't shout "GUESS WHAT DAY IT IS" at the camels. Essentially, this advertisement for GEICO Insurance doubles as a "Leave the camels alone" PSA:

Here's the commersh that started all of the madness:

Image: GEICO Insurance/YouTube