Australian youth focused publisher, Pedestrian.TV is launching a new teen focused sub-brand – Pez – and is set to launch three new sub-sites before summer.
Pez – an affectionate name used by younger Pedestrian readers for the main website – will launch as a separate website between October and November, delivering news, videos and features targeted to high school readers, on topics ranging from body image, mental health, sex, dating, friendships and bullying to study tips, schoolies, and formals.
Pedestrian.TV’s new sub brand
Chris Wirasinha, co-founder of Pedestrian.TV, said there was a “real need” to create a separate platform for the younger demographic.
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“Speaking personally, being a young male when I was growing up, I was always envious of young women having these really informative resources they could go to.
“Pez will be a unisex platform – especially for young males that’s just never really existed. It’s kind of scary to think that there’s teenagers who are discovering the world through wherever Google searches lead them.
“By creating an Australian platform, purely designed towards high school teens, we can help to bring that informative, educational but also entertaining content to them in a way they want to read it.”
He also said a consideration was advertisers – who may be looking to target a younger demographic.
“There are advertisers on Pedestrian, that not always want to target that younger audience, whereas there are also advertisers that are finding it quite challenging to reach that teen audience,” he said
“We wanted to give them the ability to reach that audience without any wastage.”
Vanessa Lawrence, head of editorial at Pedestrian.tv, added in a release: “We’ve spoken with 13-17- year-olds who’ve categorically told us there’s currently no publication in- market speaking to their interests and concerns, particularly after the decline of Dolly & Girlfriend.
“PEZ will fill that gap, helping that younger demo figure out the world around them with news and information that entertains and educates.”
Wirasinha: Pedestrian.tv saw a “real need” for a separate platform for teens
Later this year, Pedestrian.tv will also launch three new verticals – Pedestrian Auto, Pedestrian Startup and Pedestrian Home, which have been created following responses from the Pedestrian audience, and from well performing content across the site.
Pedestrian Auto will focus on news and information within the sector, emerging it with pop culture.
Pedestrian Start Up will view the local and international start up community through a local lens, and Pedestrian Home will aim to “democratise” the home and interiors space with content tailored to a more price savvy audience.
Wirasinha said video content will be a major component of the three new verticals.
“We are continuing to kind of build out are video team and offering, and in the last month alone, we’ve had about 20-30m views across all the content that pedestrian has been publishing.
“Across Auto we already have a couple of brands we are working with on video based partnerships, and Pedestrian Start Up – we’ve just filmed a series called ‘Founders University’, which we partnered with Bond University around.”
Wirasinha could not name any of the automotive brands involved in the new sector, and said no commercial partners had been locked in for launch.
Pedestrian’s news follows a website refresh, which sees the removal of the verticals from a top banner into a small button on the right hand side of the screen.
A small tweak to the Pedestrian website sees the removal of the top banner outlining the verticals, featuring a drop down tab instead.
The redesign aims to deliver a stronger user experience.
“The web moves very quickly and it’s been about two years since Pedestrian had a refresh,” Wirasinha said.
“We wanted to present something that was familiar to the audience but kind of kept us ahead of of what was going on in the market.”
Pedestrian.TV’s most recent Nielsen numbers showed a unique audience of 437,000, up from June’s audience of 301,000.
The number has fluctuated between 226,000 and 553,000 since February this year.
Nine owns a stake in Pedestrian.TV, which in obtained in 2015.
The news comes three months after the official launch of Junkee’s youth platform – Punkee – a social led platform aimed at Gen Z.