Former Adult film actor and industry activist Bill Margold recently told the listeners of a popular Internet radio show that the Adult industry has become hopelessly ordinary. Margold was referring to a number of factors, including the mainstream's current high level of acceptance of Adult entertainment, and the ease with which newcomers can now participate in the industry. And it's true - almost anyone can slap up an Adult Web site or use that new digital camera to snap off pictures of an "amateur" model.
Yet an argument could be made that these developments have only made it more difficult to succeed in the Adult entertainment market, since only the truly creative and extraordinary content producers will stand out from the pack.
What's meant by "creative?" Could mean creative content or creative marketing - or perhaps a healthy portion of both. What's clear is that anyone who wants to sell content in today's competitive marketplace needs to establish a unique identity in the minds of potential buyers, whether those buyers are consumers or other Adult entertainment businesses. When you talk to some of the Adult companies that have done well in this area, a familiar theme recurs: the best way to stand out in this business is to produce something that gets people talking.
Controversy Sells
Adult video producer Shane's World struck gold with the release of its infamous college sex movie, Shane's Word #32: Campus Invasion. By mixing seasoned porn stars with college frat parties, Shane's World stumbled onto something that simply "worked" for a number of reasons. In fact, that breakout video was so popular it eventually spawned a new series, College Invasion.
"I think that Shane's World content is very unique," says Nicole Henderson, a publicist with Shane's World. "We do the whole 'young people having fun' thing. College Invasion is young college guys and college girls inviting us out there to party, and everyone's having a great time, and then people have sex, too. So we mix in the fun with the sex and show that it can be healthy and exciting."
In other words, the focus isn't just on sex; it's about college students having the kinds of parties they only dreamed about when they first arrived on campus.
Of course when it comes to asking people to remember Shane's World, it never hurts that Shane's World #32 was a magnet for controversy. After Shane's World filmed explicit sex scenes with students from Indiana University, the mainstream press picked up on the aftermath as IU officials repeatedly expressed their outrage at the student involvement. Outrage from "prudes," however, has always had an overwhelmingly positive effect on an Adult product's sales receipts. Shane's World couldn't have asked for a better marketing partner than the angry and threatening officials from IU. And that's one reason why Shane's World #32 was so instrumental in establishing the Shane's World identity with Adult entertainment fans. It was a sweet victory for party animals and slackers everywhere.
"We were one of the first companies to do that," says Henderson of the frat party sex scenes. "Shane's World #32 was the trip where we went to the college campus that kind of started the whole College Invasion series, and with that series we got national exposure on Dateline, The O'Reilly Factor, MTV News; Abercrombie and Fitch did a story, Rolling Stone did a story, so we were up in the faces of millions of people through the mainstream media. I think when people hear College Invasion and Shane's World they automatically think, 'Oh wait, we heard of you back when,' and then they remember a story that was done on us in the past."
There's also something to be said for turning socially connected men - meaning male college students - into amateur porn stars. Why? Because they're usually so proud of themselves afterwards that they tell all of their friends about their accomplishment. Dude, you should have seen me! And those friends tell their other friends. I've known this guy since forever, man! I can't believe he did it!
"We get hundreds of emails a week, at least, from people from different campuses," says Henderson. "Either they saw a video and they saw a friend, or their friend told them that we came."
All that word of mouth can do a lot to brand a company's name in the minds of consumers. The constant exposure has done wonders for connecting the Shane's World brand with college parties and young adults having a really good time.
"The campus we went to for College Invasion 6 - we've already gotten responses from people in the surrounding areas," explains Henderson. "We've already heard, 'Oh hey my friend told me about this great party at such and such campus, can you guys come out here and do the same thing for us?' And the video hadn't even been released yet."
Viral Marketing
Generating buzz and word-of-mouth is particularly effective when the product being pushed is authentic. Using real college students and real college parties gives Shane's World an edge that few others have matched in that niche. And the same rules apply to other areas of Adult entertainment. In the BDSM niche, Wasteland.com is one of the established leaders. Colin Rowntree, owner of Wasteland, Inc., says it's important to have a product that will ring true with its intended audience. His company goes to great lengths to ensure that its flagship product, Wasteland.com, will find acceptance with the BDSM community.
"We employ people on the editorial, photography and videography side that are actually part of [the BDSM] community," says Rowntree. "So it's all real, as opposed to the mass-produced simulated fetish content - I guess that's a good way to put it - where it's obvious that it's play-acting. The content that we go for [shows] the things that actually happen within the BDSM community as far as their activities. People who are involved with that and are looking for that kind of resource on the Web are looking for things that are real. They can spot fake stuff a mile away and they'll just cancel the membership."
According to Rowntree, when BDSM enthusiasts arrive at Wasteland.com, they know right away that they've found a site designed specifically for the BDSM lifestyle community.
"It jumps out, it uses the right verbiage, it's got all the triggers on it for people who are looking for a lifestyle site," says Rowntree.
But how does a Web-based content production company like Wasteland actually get people to look at its content in the first place? Rowntree admits that he finds targeted search engine traffic to be a valuable resource, but he also believes that "viral marketing" plays a crucial role in establishing one's online presence and pushing a company brand. Viral marketing usually involves creating small and compelling bits of content - often humorous - that are designed to be passed around between users on the Internet, thus replicating and growing almost like a virus.
"Viral marketing is very important," says Rowntree. "We've got hundred of mini-sites with twelve pictures and little movies, and they're just all over the Net and they have been for years. Once you stumble into that loop, a person can basically spend days wandering around our free offerings until [Wasteland] is sufficiently branded that they end up on the pay sites and say, 'Okay, here's the mother lode."
An example of viral marketing in action is Rowntree's AmishBondage.com Web site, which showcases a series of funny picture sets that Rowntree shot with amateur Web model Nina Marachino a few years ago. The site is essentially an advertisement for both Wasteland.com and Nina's own Web site, NinaKnowsBest.com. The pictures are meant to amuse as well as arouse, increasing the chance that a visitor to that site will pass along the URL to his or her friends.
"Amish Bondage is a very good example of getting word of mouth with a "tell a friend" button on it, or whatever," says Rowntree. "And you get this thing out there and it takes off like wildfire."
For viral marketing efforts, peer-to-peer networks like KaZaA are a helpful resource. Although users of peer-to-peer networks are looking for free content, Rowntree believes that exposing them to a quality premium product can still pay dividends.
"We're doing quite a bit with peer-to-peer networks right now as far as having short clips out there that are branded," says Rowntree. "Even if they are peer-to-peer people that are looking for free stuff, it's getting to them and showing them a level of quality that they're not going to find somewhere else."
Although he has a quality product to work with, Rowntree admits that he does have an ace up his sleeve in the form of a top-notch domain name. A content producer who wants to establish a unique identity on the Internet needs a domain name that is conductive to that goal. How important is the domain name in Wasteland.com's success?
"Because we do work on the branding concept so heavily, it's extremely important," admits Rowntree. "It depends on what you're doing. If someone basically is putting up a kind of vanilla porn gateway that's shooting off traffic to various affiliate programs, I don't think it matters that much, as long as they're managing to get the traffic and filter it correctly and get it to the right place. But for a flagship super-site where people actually can get t-shirts and posters and mouse pads and heaven knows what, you have to have a good name that's easy to remember, easy to spell, looks good on a logo, and ties the whole thing together."
Live
Of course it's one thing to build up a reputation with Adult entertainment fans, as both Wasteland and Shane's World have done with notable success, but what about marketing content to other Adult entertainment companies? Selling content to Adult webmasters, for example, is challenging on several fronts. Most webmasters want content that will help convert more hits into subscriptions, and content that will improve a Web site's average membership length. The best Web-based content needs to be fresh, since successful webmasters often prefer to give their customers something new to watch each and every day.
Live video is a great way for webmasters to deliver content that is continually fresh.
CamZ.com has provided Adult Web site owners with live and interactive amateur content for years, and according to Dan, one of the company's founders, the focus on real amateur performers has made all the difference in his company's success. Just as Wasteland.com delivers something authentic for the BDSM community, CamZ.com provides an authentic amateur experience.
"Real amateurs are much more personable because their primary reason for doing it is not for money, so to speak, but they're doing it for the entertainment of their customer base," says Dan. "So the quality of the shows is much better."
And surprisingly, when it comes to live amateur content, CamZ.com doesn't face a lot of competition.
"There are some live content producers that have come out, but the shows do not compare to ours," explains Dan. "The fact that we use real amateurs instead of models goes a long way towards great performances and a long way in the eyes of the surfers looking for that live content."
But content quality alone is not the only factor that can affect a company's ability to market content effectively to webmasters. How flexible is that content? In other words, how difficult is it to integrate that content into a Web site? CamZ has chosen to sacrifice exposure for the sake of making a better product for its webmaster clients.
"One of the things that I think separates us is that we allow other people to take our content and brand it, to make it a part of their site seamlessly," says Dan. "A lot of content producers that offer plug-ins are just that - they plug in, but you don't retain the individualistic parts of your site. You can go to our content and completely take that content and make it seamless in your site."
Dan says that integrating the CamZ feeds in this seamless manner is just one option available to webmasters, and he admits that it does come at the expense of exposure for CamZ. Still, he thinks a quality product can pay dividends when his webmaster clients start to talk about CamZ with other webmasters.
"We rely on word of mouth primarily," says Dan. "I'm sure people see our content not even knowing it's our content."
Again it comes back to getting people talking. Dan's comments on the importance of reputation only seem to confirm what Shane's World experienced with its College Invasion series, and what Rowntree stressed with viral marketing; if a company can get people talking about its products then it stands well positioned to succeed.
"Word of mouth and customer recommendations are the primary reason for our success," says Dan.
Nicole tells a similar story about Shane's World.
"Everyone who works with us talks very highly about us to everyone else," she says.
It all comes down to giving buyers some content to talk about.
Connor Young is the editor-in-chief of The ADULTWEBMASTER Magazine.
