According to a report in the L.A. Times, the trailer for the new movie pops up if a user clicks on clips like "Teens Love to Experiment" or "2 Glamorous Women and One Lucky Guy."
There are also accompanying banner ads for the trailer below the clip viewer.
"Middle Men" is loosely based on the exploits of Internet pioneer Christopher Mallick who blazed the path for adult sites by creating the online billing system.
Mallick personally financed the $20-million production and also is underwriting the film's release.
The clips are marked as advertisements on the tube sites and the clever viral marketing could mark another milestone in porn’s mainstream crossover.
"I can't tell you how many friends of mine have said, 'I saw your 30-second spot online,'" said William Sherak, one of the producers. "And I know there's only one place they saw it!"
"About 12 percent of total websites are pornographic and about 40 million Americans are regular porn site visitors. In the U.S., annual adult-oriented Internet revenues are approaching $3 billion. "But nobody admits they watch it," Sherak said. "None of this is taboo to me anymore."
"The studios say, 'Oh God, we can't market there,'" Mallick said. "Do they think [the users] are all sitting in a basement and are all pedophiles? They are average Americans. Adult entertainment is becoming much more mainstream."
Mallick told the Times that in just a few weeks the trailer has been seen about 30 million times on online porn sites and some 6 million people have clicked from the adult sites to the "Middle Men" website, where 4 million have watched the full trailer.
"It's much more effective than television commercials," Mallick said.
"They went to [the adult sites] to do something else and chose to click off" to our site, Sherak said. "That's commitment."
Another clip – an extended scene released without the filmmaker's permission showing the lead character Jack Harris wandering through an orgy – also made it onto the Internet, according to the Times report.
Kevin Blatt, the noted celebrity sex tape entrepreneur handles the advertising for Manwin, the parent company of Pornhub and YouPorn. Blatt told the Times that his company's sites generate more than 3 billion monthly page views and attract a largely male audience, a potentially great match not only for some movies but also sports and liquor advertisers.
"We have more traffic than God," Blatt said. "The only people to get more traffic than us are Google and Yahoo. And here, we pretty much have a captive audience."
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