The "Marketing and Merchandising Adult Product" seminar was held on Friday afternoon. Scheduled moderator Bill Murphy (owner of the Fairvilla Megastore in Orlando, Florida) was unable to attend, but sent his daughter Amy Murphy, Fairvilla's director of marketing in his place.
Short presentations were given by a panel made up of Kylie Ireland from VCA Pictures, Joy King from Wicked, California Exotic Novelties' Susan Colvin, Teresa Flynt-Gerke from Hustler Hollywood, and East Coast Novelties/IVD's Mike Savage.
King kicked the seminar off with a slick, softcore promo tape of Wicked's contract girls, and spoke of in-store appearances, posters and stand-up displays.
"At California Exotic Novelties, our motto is 'living the fantasy'. Everything we do is based on the idea that sex should be exciting," said Colvin. She outlined the five areas her company works with in terms of marketing strategy: Packaging product to a target audience, gearing product toward a target audience, developing product and packaging to make a statement (ie: displaying product in groups such as the "Jill Kelly line"), the importance of using "New Item" stickers, and using packaging that's interchangeable, so that the store can substitute one product for another if they're out of stock.
"You really have to believe in what you promote," explained Ireland. She noted that she'd only held the position of VCA's publicist for a short time, but felt confident in her knowledge of the adult business. She spoke of the importance of company identification, and VCA's quarterly report.
"You've got to understand - customers are addicts. We've got to feed the addiction," said Savage, explaining his strategy of purchasing new product on a weekly (rather than monthly) basis. This extends to both tapes and novelties. "We have a saying that 'No one wants to buy the last dildo on the wall'."
Teresa Flynt-Gerke's focus was on women consumers. "Women need to be able to shop somewhere that isn't dark and seedy." She hired outside architects who weren't familiar with the adult industry to set up the Hustler Hollywood store, and stressed the use of color in the scheme of the interior of the building: soft colors toward the front of the store with the candles, t-shirts and lotions, and deeper and richer colors as the customer progresses toward the harder items such as toys and leather goods. "Think about the design of your store, and who's coming into it," she advised.
Murphy spoke at length about her unusual tactics to get publicity, which she referred to as "guerrilla marketing" and "alternative marketing." She suggested retailers form relationships with their local radio stations, create a "ladies night," take a booth at bridal shows (and talk about the softer side of novelties, such as honey dust), associate your store with charitable events, speak at colleges for sexual awareness week and graduate level seminars, promote in local bars and taverns, and stage publicity stunts. Her store once had a promo involving Deirdre Holland and Jon Dough arriving in a helicopter.
