Adult humor blog POPPORN.com and online retailer TLARaw.com joined forces last year to create an online hot spot for porn fans who love written content almost as much as video. Upping their pop culture appeal in one swift—though major—move, the new POPPORN.com has combined social media prowess with e-commerce expertise to cater more to their fans than ever before. But the team hasn’t stopped there.
POPPORN signed with Pure Play Media in November 2014 with an ambitious plan to produce the kind of mass-appeal pornography that speaks to an audience spanning beyond their millions of fans.
“This move meant that POPPORN and TLA Raw were able to keep the very elements that made us totally unique: humorous blogs and direct sales,” POPPORN COO Brian Bangs said. “We can now respond to consumer trends and interact with our fans and customers on a daily basis using every platform.”
And with that mindset, the POPPORN team began production of its very first film, It’s Getting SIRIOUS, which starred fast-rising busty starlet Siri and was released nationwide at the start of the New Year. The theme they chose was the perfect way to showcase their production plan while setting an intention to be a serious (or Sirious?) player in the porn biz.
“Siri has been a stand-out performer since she started gracing covers back in 2012,” Bangs said. “Our customers went absolutely nuts for her and we continued to notice how movies featuring her would sell exceptionally well. Last year, she won the 2014 TLA Raw Award for Performer of the Year and TLA Raw’s Battle of the Superstars tournament. We knew then that she had to be the star of our first release.”
Pure Play Media Sales Representative Mike Lerner handles the account and is confident that the merger and the move into porn production was a smart move for the brand and will only mean good things for retailers stocking its DVDs.
“POPPORN and TLA Raw have been extremely successful in maintaining an audience that responds to humor and topical industry talk, so from there it was an organic move for them to produce movies,” Lerner said. “There is an immediacy to what they produce. Siri really blew up in 2014 so naturally she was the showcase for their first title. POPPORN as a studio can now build on what made them stand out as a retailer and blog, which is the ability to quickly respond to trends.”
In fact, POPPORN has actually been working in production since 2009, initially directing features for Zero Tolerance and Third Degree. Since then the company slowly developed content on its own, which culminated in the official launch of POPPORN Productions. And we at Pure Play agree with Brian that the studio’s modern and interactive approach will keep the fans coming back for more—both online and in brick and mortar.
“We pride ourselves in catering to the true porn fans out there,” Bangs said. “We want to serve customers who are collectors and who are passionate about the performers they love so dearly. So we try to approach everything we do as fans. Fans purchase Blu-Rays and DVDs for their collections. They pay for their porn because they believe in the product but they only buy the product that they feel is worth their hard-earned money, so we promote product that is quality, offers a great value, or both. And that is also what we’re doing with our productions.”
As one of the most social media-engaged companies, POPPORN has a unique opportunity not only to listen to its fans, but respond and participate in conversations that ultimately help them create content and products that people actually want to buy.
“We engage fans and customers via our Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, as well as always responding to emails, letters, phone calls,” Bangs said.
It’s clear that fans of adult content are not only extremely discerning with a good sense of humor but also ready for a tech-savvy portal that offer so much more than the average XXX website.
“We planned extensively for the switch-over and customers quickly acclimated,” Bangs added. “Immediately, they seemed downright thrilled with [the TLA Raw and POPPORN merge] which was a surprise. Typically changes like these send people into a tizzy and it takes a while to settle their fears of losing stability in their shopping experience, but we didn’t see any of that. And that was a pleasant surprise.”
And while POPPORN is still reeling from its first official DVD release, the studio already has hired a second director whose first release will be ready this spring.
“Our productions are already scheduled about six months out so we’ll be busy in the short term,” Bangs said. “We’re trying to keep things small. Production is a supplement to our retail and blog and each division works hand-in-hand with each of the others so we never want to lose focus on that fact. Quality over quantity is our goal.”ì
This article by Hyland of Pure Play Media originally ran in the February issue of AVN magazine.
