GrodsCorp

Fairfax’s totally rad new website

Thursday 28 February 2008, 11:21 am

The Editor

Categories: Corporate stupidity, Media

Tags: advertising, Fairfax, Kwerky, websites, youth

Like a middle-aged man in a grey suit dressing in backward baseball cap and Converse sneakers, Fairfax is launching a totally radical website aimed at yoof aged 18-29.

Fairfax Digital is putting the finishing touches to the website, codenamed Kwerky, aimed at free-spending hedonists desperate to have their say.

To be launched within weeks, the website means to tap into a market Fairfax believes has been overlooked by social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook which have focused solely on allowing users to create the content.

Kwerky will publish off-beat news stories, reviews and opinion on music, sport, fashion and entertainment but allow users to review the reviewers.

Awesome. Fairfax is going to re-publish wire stories about odd-spot events around the world along with brainless reviews about stuff that they think is fringe but will invariably be totally mainstream. Not even the, like, totally awesome name will cover for the crapness of the content. And review the reviewers? I can just see the Fairfax comment moderation team letting through a comment that says “this shit s fkn lame yr all a grp of cnts.”

But Fairfax has really done their research and they have buzzwords galore to describe what they’re trying to do.

Youth product manager Cinnamon Pollard…

Sorry to interrupt, but Cinnamon! Surely somebody’s taking the piss. Anyway, let’s continue.

…told staff its research had found that “identity seekers” - a segment of the 3.2 million 18-29 year olds - wanted their voices to be heard.

“They want to rate, vote and have their say. They want to gain recognition among their peers. Whatever we do we need to facilitate that,” she said.

Because “identity seeking” yoof are really going to seek their identity at a pathetic and try-hard mainstream media site. Say what you like about the illiterate, nihilist yoof of generation Z but they can smell bullshit a hundred kilometres away and this thing is going to stink like little else ever seen on the Australian intertubes.

But do you want to know the main reason I think “Kwerky” will go down like a balloon full of bullshit?

Classified ads for cars, property and jobs from Fairfax’s other websites will be run.

I’d kill to have been a fly on the wall of the board meetings where this arse of an idea was tossed around.

8 Comments

Wah (Thursday 28 February 2008, 11:35 am) #

Fairfax is as rad as lettuce.
keri (Thursday 28 February 2008, 11:52 am) #

Who in the name of arse do they think they’re fooling with a name like “Kwerky”?
billybob (Thursday 28 February 2008, 12:07 pm) #

I khink Cinnamon has koo many ‘K’ keys on her keyboard.

This is such a bad idea, I don’t know where to start. This ‘idea’ has probably been worked on since 2003, with a wealth of Marketing professionals locked in a room weeks at a time… each week coming out, shouting things like…”we have it, we need a ‘youth product manager’in order to grow this segment”

F-wits
Damian (Thursday 28 February 2008, 12:23 pm) #

Free-spending hedonists? Maybe they mean shallow cashed-up fuckwits. I bet their market-segmenting sales consultancy mob didn’t put that on their fucking powerpoint slides.

“With the kwerky(TM) touchpoint we think you can really get some traction in the shallow cashed-up fuckwit space…”

But seriously, surely it would have been cheaper (and less embarrassing in the long term) for them to simply get some geek to make a “Kwerky news application” for facebook. There’d be all that free market info, too.

Regarding the delicious Ms Cinnamon, let’s not forget Ms Capone, whose name turned out to be real.

PS this shit s fkn lame yr all a grp of cnts!!1!
Bron (Thursday 28 February 2008, 12:34 pm) #

What Keri said. “Kwerky”? That really annoys the fuck out of me. Just as well I’m not in their targeted demographic.
EC (Friday 29 February 2008, 12:18 pm) #

Cinnamon!! Fantastic.

Sounds like ‘Kwerky’ is going to be a hoot.
Ben (Wednesday 5 March 2008, 12:28 pm) #

Couldn’t agree more …here’s my post on the concept

http://mimelbourne.blogspot.com/2008/02/do-you-want-to-alienate-audience-before.html
krypto (Wednesday 5 March 2008, 1:15 pm) #

you know this reminds me of during the election campaign, that ‘orrid Sophie Antoinette(Mirabella) had these shit eating ad campaigns on the telly with this putrid little teenage turd in dredlocks, I bet they gave him enough for a deal bag, pointed his ugly little mug down the lense and said “now make this believable or I’m telling your parole officer what you were up to before I collared you to do this ad”.
Integrity factor……0.0