This article originally ran in the September 2016 issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see the digital edition.
LOS ANGELES—RubyVR is continuing its adult industry rollout, teaming with BadoinkVR, VRPorn.com and GameLink.com to provide free virtual reality goggles to thousands of new consumers.
In an effort to provide clients with a cost-effective way to introduce consumers to virtual reality, RubyVR invented and manufactures the Mailer VR goggles as well as a complete line of virtual reality headsets that work with all smartphones and are compatible with all virtual reality videos.
The VRPorn.com promotion drove “exceptionally high traffic and user engagement,” reaching 1,000 signups per hour at its peak, according to VRPorn.com’s Daniel Peterson.
“Our site traffic is blowing up with people interested in VR,” said Peterson, the founder and CEO of GenVR, the managing company of VRPorn.com. “But many of these people are new, have never tried VR, and don’t even know where to start. So the first thing they need is VR goggles.
“Our partnership with RubyVR and BadoinkVR allowed us to supply a huge amount of VR viewers to these users efficiently and cost-effectively. The response was overwhelming, peaking at 1,000 signups per hour. RubyVR handled all the hard work and offered great support, and now there are a lot of happy new VR users in the world. This is reflected in significant site traffic and revenue increases coinciding with mailer deliveries.”
RubyVR’s partnership with online retailing and video-on-demand leader, GameLink, to provide viewers for their current and potential VR customers in conjunction with their new VR site, GameLinkVR.com, has also had an immediate impact.
“VR is our fastest growing customer segment right now,” explained Jeff Dillon, vice president of business development & marketing at eLine.com, the parent company of GameLink.com.
“For us to keep growing this customer base we need to get VR and VR viewers in the hands of potential customers. Since we have tons of standard VOD customers it is natural that some of them will transition to VR consumption. Thanks to our partnership with Ruby VR we were able to get viewers in the hands of our customers. Many of our customers are experiencing VR for the first time and loving it.
“The promotion we ran was so successful we ran out of VR viewers in a month and had to reorder. Ruby VR has a great turnaround time for reorders, so we didn’t leave anyone hanging.”
GameLink chose an unbranded, all-black version for their promotion. The RubyVR Mailer is lightweight and durable and can be shipped to consumers with a standard postage stamp. It’s also designed to facilitate an up-sell to higher end goggles; GameLink up-sold 15 percent of free goggles recipients to the higher end headset, RubyVR indicated.
The company officially launched in June with an emphasis on its unique ability to customize orders for any kind of brand, message or website. Along with the technology to manufacture viewers with a wide range of materials including leather, velvet and latex, RubyVR says it uses “optically superior” lenses that provide a wider field of view with no peripheral distortion.
Its turnkey service includes custom printing, manufacturing, assembly and fulfillment of the full line, which is made in Berkeley, Calif., and Google Cardboard-certified.
The team behind RubyVR arrived in adult with extensive experience in high-speed printing and case making for a range of premium consumer and office products.
“We want to work with everybody,” said Michael Donohue, executive vice president of RubyVR.
