Long before there was online porn, there were legal brothels, strip clubs and adult retailers. Today, the smartest of these "old dogs" of adult are doing just fine because they've embraced the Web and all it can offer.
The best little whorehouse online
It's called the Chicken Ranch Brothel, but you probably know it as the inspiration for the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Yes, the star of the Broadway and Hollywood musicals was none other than the Chicken Ranch Brothel in LaGrange, Texas.
Founded in 1844, the Chicken Ranch soldiered on until it was run out of town by self-righteous residents in 1973. (The name arose because cash was scarce when the ranch first opened, so customers often bartered chickens for sex.) The Chicken Ranch was revived as a legal brothel in Pahrump, Nev., where it still operates. "It is the closest legal brothel to Las Vegas, where prostitution is, of course, illegal," Manager Debbie Rivenburgh said.
Despite its long history, the Chicken Ranch is very much Internet-oriented. Visit its website, ChickenRanchBrothel.com, and you'll find information on its girls, a "menu" of its many specialties, live video chats and an online store that sells the girls' used panties.
That's not all. "We offer a variety of coupons that will add to the client's Chicken Ranch experience," Rivenburgh said. "These have gone over very well. We take in anywhere from two to 10 coupons per week. We offer a birthday package, which includes $50, champagne and Chicken Ranch logo products. We have had email contests where the winner received a four-day, all-expense paid trip to Vegas and the CR, which included airfare, hotel, limo service and a very expensive session with the woman of his dreams."
Clearly, the former Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is very much at home on the Web. Why not? "We estimate that 50 percent of new clients research our business online before paying us a visit," Rivenburgh said.
To keep newcomers interested and regulars coming back, the Chicken Ranch constantly updates its website and experiments with its design. "We started out with a picture or two of the women," Rivenburgh said. "We now have complete galleries with a personal profile on each woman. We just recently began to add a video profile of the women to their galleries. This helps the clients to see the woman live, so to speak, and will allow the clients to get to know the women a little better before arriving and making a decision on who to spend time with. We post our lineup of women weekly. This feature updates each Wednesday and runs through the following Tuesday night.
"People visiting our site will see that we have telephone chat available. They can call 866-685-2397 and speak to a Chicken Ranch girl. Not only does this leverage the Chicken Ranch's brand name for phone sex, but it also gives the girls a chance to impress the callers and perhaps entice them to the ranch."
This said, the Chicken Ranch Brothel views the Web primarily as a marketing tool, rather than a moneymaker. "With a legal brothel, you want your clients to visit the brothel where all of the women are," Rivenburgh explained. "With a brothel, the goal is for the business to come to the women, which is why they are here in the first place. I know there are millions, if not billions, of dollars to be made in the cybersex arena, but the bottom line is that, eventually, the men utilizing those services will want the real thing, and that is where we come in."
The Chicken Ranch experimented with launching a live webcam service but found it didn't pay off. "The idea was that the client would spend some money that way and then come to Vegas to visit the woman here at the brothel," Rivenburgh said. "However, it did not work out as well as we had hoped. The women were not all that receptive to the idea. Most found that they did not make the kind of money they hoped for, so they quit investing time in front of the camera. They also found that the webcam service did not translate into brothel dollars in the long run, so we pulled the plug on it."
Today, the Chicken Ranch Brothel values its Web presence very, very highly. "On a scale of one to 10, I would say it's a 10," Rivenburgh said. "Knowing that we can relate 50 percent of our new business to the Internet, I would say the Internet plays a huge role in our bottom line.
"People research everything online these days. I believe that a lot of people feel more comfortable trying new things after they have had a chance to view the product [or] service online first."
Being on the Web also has opened up new markets for the Chicken Ranch Brothel. "With the ability to email anonymously and ask all those burning questions, we have seen an increase in the numbers of couples and single women seeking our services," Rivenburgh said. "I do not believe that most of these people would have utilized our services had they not had the opportunity to ask questions and determine whether our business was a fit for their needs and desires."
One thing is certain: Rivenburgh sees the Chicken Ranch doing even more to promote itself on the Web. "We are looking to add a discussion board to our site in the near future," she said. "Who knows what else? With technology changing so fast, there could be all sorts of new and exciting things on the horizon!"
A Web-veteran strip club
Houston-based Rick's Cabaret opened in 1983, combining beautiful topless dancers with quality restaurant service. Its upscale strategy worked: Rick's Cabaret opened clubs in cities such as New York, and it went public in 1995. (You can find its stock listed under RICK on the NASDAQ.) Many Rick's dancers have gone onto to become Playboy Playmates or Penthouse Pets. Anna Nicole Smith was dancing in the Houston Rick's Cabaret when she met the man she would marry, billionaire oilman Howard Marshall II.
In Internet terms, Rick's Cabaret is an old-timer, having opened its first website in 1998. The site, Ricks.com, paid off. "We had a good response from customers who were then able to communicate with us directly through email to our executive and management teams, as well as stay up-to-date with information about the company," said Travis Reese, the company's vice president of information services. "After going public, we added new sections for news about the company, our press releases, as well as the ability for customers and investors to quickly see our current stock price."
Today, Ricks.com offers club information and an online merchandising store. It also has links to maps of each club location, club pictures and virtual tours. But the site stays away from offering live sex chats, XXX-rated galleries and videos, and other items that are the stock-in-trade of many adult sites. "While there are successful companies using the Web to make money through these types of products, we have focused more on using our Web presence to provide customers and investors with information about our clubs and our company," Reese explained. "While we have plans to further develop our presence on the Web, it will be focused on promoting the Rick's brand and providing information to customers and investors."
But don't be fooled: Rick's knows the power of the adult Internet. In addition to its clubs, the company owns the adult novelty auction site NaughtyBids.com and the swingers' membership site CouplesTouch.com. Clearly, this is a company with stakes in the real world and cyberspace.
An adult retail institution
Anne Amitay opened Lovecraft in Toronto in 1972, the same year in which Seiko and Longines introduced the LCD digital watch. By the time this trendy adult store hit the Web in 1998, it was a local landmark firmly based in the brick-and-mortar world, and digital watches were old hat.
Lovecraft's website, LovecraftSexShop.com, originally was "partnered up with another site, which, at that time, was offering sex advice," Amitay said. "We had very few products available for purchase. The partnership lasted less than two years, until we decided to branch out on our own and build our own website to feature many of our products."
Initially, the Web didn't appear to be much of a moneymaker for Lovecraft. But once online sales started heating up, "we realized that this could be a good source of extra revenue," Amitay said. It also was a great alternative to Lovecraft's mail-order catalog, which generated sales but required constant updating when old products were deleted and new ones were added.
"With the Internet store, deleting products, adding new products or temporarily putting something out of stock was relatively easy," Amitay said. "Added to this was the fact that many customers from our brick-and-mortar store started to use our Web store for research purposes. Many came in with lists of what they wanted to buy after looking the products up on the Web store.
"We find having a website is a great way to tell customers about our products and other useful sex-related articles and topics. We have an advice column/blog where people can write in with questions or concerns, and if we have new information about products or materials, we post this information. We also have the opportunity to send them monthly newsletters announcing new products or promotions. The response to our promotions is quite good, so we can determine that customers are visiting our site on a regular basis."
Today, Lovecraft's physical store and cyberstore coexist in happy harmony. "We find ourselves in the fortunate position of having two symbiotic businesses," Amitay said. "Our Web store enhances our brick-and-mortar store, and because we have been in business for over 35 years, we have an excellent reputation ... [so] people trust us and are willing to place orders through our Web store."
Can old dogs be taught new tricks? When it comes to established sex businesses and the Internet, the answer is "yes!" Fortunately, for the online adult industry, many established sex businesses haven't grasped this fact yet. This leaves them open to marketing partnerships and offers online companies more opportunities for profit.
-Michael Pearson
This article initially appeared in the April 2008 edition of AVN Online magazine. To subscribe to AVN Online, visit AVNMediaNetwork.com/subscriptions/ .