Thanks to Brendan for this shot. We’ve worsted down Margaret river way before, with Howling Wolves (Who have yet to send me bottle one for all the promotion I’ve done for them.) This however looks like a bad joke. Can drinkers really be attracted by koalas having sex? Aren’t koalas being wiped out by sexually transmitted disease? Hello people, there are no koalas in WA, why make them a selling point? Why not use a local Margaret River emblem like the wanker? At least Howling Wolves didn’t have the poor judgement to have one wolf throwing a leg over. Surely the agency would have been arguing strongly that the name bare rooted, a vine growing term would be enough to make the joke without making everyone concerned look like a dickhead?
Perhaps the agency consult went like this.
Agency Metrosexual: Love the name. Got a classy logo of vine roots for you, it’s also suggestive of a river…
Client: We want a koala knobbing another koala.
Agency Metrosexual: But don’t you think just having rooted in the name is sufficient? There aren’t even any koalas in the region…
Client: We want koalas fucking, you gardenia scented cocksucker!
Agency Metrosexual: Perhaps two koalas smiling at each other..? Holding hands..?
Client: Listen lunchbox, if our logo doesn’t have one koala with its dick up another koala, we’ll get ourselves a new metrosexual.
Agency Metrosexual: Koalas fucking it is.
Their website is plain stupid, with the inane question, “Have you seen a koala bare?” It then asks you to click to see the answer, which is “We have.” Does that even mean anything? Why invite a click if there’s no payoff or joke? You then are invited to torture yourself further, if you like that question by receiving another question, which is, “Have you seen a bare rooted?” The hilarious response is “We have.” Graduates of clown college, they are not. Further invites bring up the same question over and over again. Why? There are so many questions as to how this could have gone so terribly wrong. It’s awful from arsehole to breakfast. I hope the wine is better than the graphic design, web design or humour skills of the participants.
On the other hand, I’m still open to sponsorship talks Bare Rooted. With just one pallette of piss, you could get yourself half a million views in 2010. Get your koalas to wash their hands and talk to my people.
The Worst of Perth 
ridiculous!
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Oh! Dear!
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I can’t bare it.
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I can’t bear it.
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but they’re not bears.
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They’re not bare either.
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Which is why they’re rooted.
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The coffee stains, the recursive ‘other question’, the idea that the question was so great you might like another, the 404’d contact link from the second question page, the cries of CLICK HERE.
But most of all, the disclaimer on the winery page, in case you thought anything untoward might be going on:
“Any connection drawn between the name Bare Rooted and our native Koala Bears and their occasional nocturnal recreational activities is absolutely unintended.”
Clearly.
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You are absolutely right about this one TLA, a genuine, class A fucking worst!
To save anyone the pain of actually having a look here is the description of their ’06 Sem Sav Blanc
“Intense lifted aromas of tropical pineapple and pawpaw: confectionary jube fruit, crisp pea pod and savoury tomato bush.
The palate is rich and creamy with ripe tropical flavours, balanced by cleansing herbaceous characters, balanced acid and a dry finish”
No mention of koala semen though which seems a pity.
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Not clever, not funny.
Completely lacking in class and sublety.
This sort of crassness might work for a cheap beer or a alcopop but wine, no.
Feels like a vanity project of people with more money than sense and more time than taste.
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Yes it does. That’s exactly what it seems like. You’d hope no ad agency was involved. The logo although stupid, does seem to have been drawn by a professional hand.
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I always find it distressing that people who are so clearly lacking in taste always seem to have access to enough money to loudly proclaim their vulgarity.
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my mum used to say, “no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy class!”
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fuck, yeah
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Liz Farrelly was on a similar theme last week:
http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-fate-worse-than-death-for-the-rich-20091216-kxjm.html
No mention of rooting Koalas though.
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those sydney folk just don’t know how to spend their money properly.
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But it’s not that, it’s the fact that everything they’ve done works against their own product. If you want to sell it overseas, noone understands the joke, having a bad website that deliberately annoys your customers is not useful for selling wine. Having a logo that is stupid as well as being unconnected to a region that has a strong branding as upmarket wine producer is counter productive.
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Is it a simple coincidence that on the day this is posted “Inseminators 09” has arked up again?
The image in this post and the related website makes me cringe and reminds me of all the crap I had to bear (understandably) as an Aussie in the UK.
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Similar aren’t they? The Inseminator cartoon is better than koala logo though.
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the inseminators don’t pretend to be anything other than students (moronic and misinformed yes) but this is a company with a prepubescent humoured logo marketing to adults ( some of whom may still be students; moronic and misinformed).
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This is what happens when bogans get their hands on serious cash.
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A world-leading example of desperate, unfunny, bad taste marketing. My sympathies to the families and companies that built up the Margaret River brand name; Cullens, Moss Wood, Leeuwin, Cape Mentelle and Vasse Felix.
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And hasn’t the stain from the wineglass been done to fucking death? I’m sure we’ve featured it before on some other bad graphic design. Can’t find it.
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And there was this one too.
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I had a horrible thought. if I had people, my people would probably be Cookster.
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Found pic of the actual wine label and added it. Jeezus, what were they thinking?
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Thinking, TLA, is patently *not* something that they are very good at.
More booty than brains.
More arse than class.
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Isn’t there some sort of wine advertising standards commission we can complain to? These guys should be run out of town.
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All I can say is bloody glorified Industrial Chemists – not like my old mand and my uncle who can make a good drop without relying on a Uni Degree – in fact my uncle actually toaught a Dept of Agriculture “Viticulturist how to to prune a vine properly.
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perhaps i need to grow up, but it’s the kind of thing i can imagine giving to maiden aunts at christmas.
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What a terrible website “We Have” is not the answer to these stupid questions.
If they had perhaps given us a multiple choice –
“Have You Ever Seen A Bare Rooted?”
A) Yes – I root Koalas all the time
B) No – I only root Koalas with the lights off
C) Not Sure – Koalas are not bears
Then the “We Have” might make a bit more sense.
Best worst you’ve had in ages Lazy Aussie. Ticks all the Worst boxes.
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Definitely agree – this is some of the worst website design I’ve seen in a long time. The wine stain is not only cliched, it also looks fake and out of place. Not to mention that at first glance, the question seems to be “Have you ever seen a koala barf?”, thanks to the stain obscuring the bottom right of the e. Mind you, that does make the answer of “We have” all the more appropriate – probably after showing the poor koalas the webpage and/or other atrocious branding associated with Bare Rooted.
Also, anybody know what’s up with the cryptic ‘hint’ on the answer page – “If you stare at a koala for long enough, you might just find yourself a new best friend”? What does that even mean? Given the connection to rooting, it all seems a bit sinister. Perhaps I’m missing something, but I wasn’t aware that koalas do anything at all if you stare at them.
Perhaps they’re like those cute little monkeys who suddenly go feral and attack if you look them in the eyes? Although instead of attacking, they’ll just go ahead and (bare) root the offender? Seems scarily like a Bare Rooted in-joke, possibly based on a true story. Regardless, I’m glad I’m not ‘best friends’ with whoever came up with the hint!
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Perhaps Jon Ronson is writing ‘The Men Who Stare at Koalas’, an Antipodean follow-up to his excellent earlier effort.
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Out of The Ordinary?
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men who stare at goats.
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It’s quite a story, shaz. You can view or download the doco here, which became the book, which became the movie, of which here and here are a couple of trailers.
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To the owners of Bare Rooted:
I have come up with a catchy new slogan…
“Bare Rooted: I’d pay more for a cleanskin”
“Bare Rooted” is to wine what “Adams Brunchbox”
is to Wanneroo Rd. Completely inappropriate styling for the type of product. Maybe they went to the same advertising agency and their style notes got mixed up?
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