CarAdvice is dead: Officially cancelled by Channel 9
Leading Australian automotive website CarAdvice has been killed off by its adoptive parents, Channel Nine. In its place, a phoenix rises…
After lengthy consideration, the Australian Automotive Academy Award for digital drop-kicks in the automotive domain goes to Channel Nine - for successfully executing the perfect publishing shank, sending the ball (it’s audience) into the sand bunker. One might even call it, ‘Doing a Tiger’.
Nine decided to procure CarAdvice four or five years ago. To add to their digital portfolio. They bought the business in two tranches from existing shareholders. (Full disclosure: I was one of those shareholders.)
Nine has owned CarAdvice outright for a couple of years. The acquisition cost them sixty-something million dollars. In the meantime, Fairfax and Nine merged, essentially because the Federal Government wouldn’t acknowledge a bad idea if it jumped up and bit them on the microphone. (This is just how it seems to me, metaphorically.)
In this merger where, let’s face it, Nine is on top, it inherited the ugly, unloved stepchild of motoring, Drive.com.au, once the only (let’s call it) ‘presence’ Fairfax had in the Australian automotive industry.
Nobody wanted that title/brand/masthead, but somebody had to take care of it. And by ‘take care of it’ I mean lock it in the basement and get the self-respecting grown-ups at CarAdvice to pretend that they’re also Drive, by hastily re-purposing CarAdvice content. (Singing from the Bauer/Wheels hymn book.)
Now, I was editor-in-chief at CarAdvice for a while, and I can tell you CarAdvice was the Australian automotive digital business. Licensed to print cash. Like, unsinkable. Taking the mantra from that engineering failure Titanic and showing everybody else how to evolve and use modern steel, manufacturing and the metric system.
It was a pasture CarAdvice brought to seemingly endless fruition. Nine, of course, viewed this as a challenge, and decided to genetically modify it anyway. They took the Fruit Fly CarAdvice challenge.
Not to say ‘I told you so’. But, I told you so >>. Back when the founders walked out, about a year ago. I think there was a disagreement of sorts. That’s the sense I got of it. They thought the new management were, um, in over their heads. Something of that nature, anyway. Therefore, the top brass - Alborz Fallah and Tony Crawford - and the comparatively duller brass ex-CarAdvice fixture Paul Maric, just walked out the door.
Just like that. ‘Bye’. It’s been an emotional couple of years.
That hammering you heard back in 2019, was the coffin nails going in at CarAdvice.
CarAdvice, of course, started out 15 years ago as little more than a spark of brilliance in Alborz’s grey matter, which Tony found quite stimulating, so he quickly jumped onboard (the business idea, not Alborz’s head, obviously). This was all metaphorically, by the way. And ‘media personality’ Paul Maric became an honorary founder, somewhat later on.
The three brass balls, (said with the utmost respect) launched a new start-up recently: The ‘Expert Media Group’. No idea where they got the inspiration for that, but good call dudes. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I suppose.
And let’s face it, they’ve already got almost all the good motoring journalism-related ‘expert’ URLS:
PressLaunchExpert,
PlatinumFrequentFlyerExpert,
ComplimentaryFiveStarAccommodationExpert,
DrivingAroundNurburgringUsuallyWithoutCrashingExpert.
Only one critical expert URL was already taken, sadly, by an even bigger, harder-swinging brass implement…
Demise and conquer
When the tripod of CarAdvice members flew the coup, critical CarAdvice decisions fell, predictably, to a Nine management dude named Alex Parsons. He’s also the co-founder and non-executive director of The Meat Society.
The Meat Society.
I could not make that up. It’s better than fiction. The satire writes itself. Like a self-roasting shoulder of pork. It’s on his Linkedin profile - almost six years at The Meat Society, 2014-present.
The Meat Society sounds, to me, like a lobby group for the porn industry. The Federal Chamber of Barbecue Industries. Get some meat into you - as Doug Mulray so famously said.
Now it’s official: CarAdvice is dead. The founding brass has moved on, and Nine’s digital dipshits have chosen to fill this void with Drive.com.au - a resurrection not unlike that of Jesus, only no virgins involved with this one.
Hilariously, this is taking place even though CarAdvice has nine times more web traffic than Drive. A bold - some would say ‘contrarian’ - move:
Meat Society co-founder Alex Parsons there, trowelling it on (personal opinion). Have you ever noticed how these corporate types can justify any course of action? Especially ones that fail the ‘sniff’ test.
Respectfully, I’m a big fan of meat, so I want to like you, but in your other job you run a business full of journalists. ‘...to materially develop’. Goddammit! You split the infinitive. There’s only one dude - in the world - exempt from the infinitive-splitting non-proliferation treaty.
That’s right. The Shat. Only the Shat may split the infinitive. Also a carnivore, clearly. Upliftingly, chicks are still hurling it at The Shat. He’s got a special stick, for batting it away. ‘...to boldly go where no man has gone before’. #legend.
Does anyone in the real world actually speak like that? Like, down the pub? Because I’ve never heard it. This kind of ‘words’ takes place exclusively in bullshit corporate media statements, insofar as I can tell.
Those platitudes - very high density indeed. #Respect. I love me a good platitude. Time will tell. Love conquers all. Calm before the storm. Opposites attract. Goes around comes around. Old as the hills. Fit as a fiddle. Nerves of steel. Ugly as sin. Kiss and make up. Happily ever after. Feed the man meat.
Yipee kai-ay, mother-lover. This segment proudly brought to you by my very good friends over at PlatitudeExpert.com.au.
If you can’t think of anything original or have nothing to say, corporate types, then think outside the box. PlatitudeExpert will put together the press release of your dreams. Hey: It’s a done deal. Just read between the lines. Go with the flow. Work smarter, not harder. PlatitudeExpert: Because it’s not rocket science.
A lesson for Wheels
So, anyway, essentially, ‘meat’ dude appears to be saying, ‘After throwing CarAdvice under the bus and burning $60 million, Nine bravely paid a bunch of advertising agency keyboard warriors (personal opinion) a few tens of thousands of dollars to develop a new logo for Drive.’ Way to go, Nine. Brilliant. And not at all a waste of time, money and potential.
Drive’s mission, of course, is to get you to engage with its online chat centre in the Philippines, so that you give them your contact details and they can sell you out to the nearest new car dealer for $60 a pop, under the table. Like, that’s the business model.
This would be arbitrage, of sorts, except they’re not paying you for your details. You’re giving it away, free, and getting nothing back - except a call from a red hot car sales dude whose objective is to gut you, financially, and fillet you, ethically, after convincing you to attend the abattoir (dealership) in which he works. All with Nine copping a reach-around in the process. Does that seem like a good deal for you? Seems like they’re looking out for the consumer, right?
I love this industry. Always so entertaining. Except if your neck is on the block at CarAdvice, of course. Better to have loved and lost. Only the good die young. Patience is a virtue. It’s always darkest just before dawn. Plenty more fish in the sea. Thanks for the memories. No such thing as a free lunch (except of course for a motoring journalist). PlatitudeExpert.com.au
In other news, Nine’s test results have come back negative, once again, for common sense.
Kerry Packer, still making like a turbine in his grave. Requiescat in pace, CarAdvice, your licence to print money has been Nined.
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