LOS ANGELES — Once a business can lay claim to being “the world’s biggest porn company,” how does it grow from there? One way is by setting its sights on becoming one of the world’s biggest entertainment companies — putting it squarely in the mainstream of current pop culture.
In a recent article for Vox.com, author Kaitlyn Tiffany explored “what the biggest pornography site in the world needs from Kanye West, fashion designers, the fine art world, and … women,” revealing a glimpse at the brand-building strategy behind Pornhub.com and the vast appeal it holds for its 90 million daily users — a brand strategy that seems to be pushing the popular adult video “tube site” down a similar path as Playboy — evolving its thrust into a hip lifestyle icon.
“It may be a small shock to discover that Pornhub even has a brand strategy, but it makes sense,” Tiffany explains. “The company has spent the past several years doing what anybody would do once they become superrich: buying their way to coolness. And, by extension, buying their way to women, whom the company has historically had a hard time appealing to.”
Tiffany detailed Pornhub’s creation and growth, with its consolidation of power to become the biggest porn distribution platform ever, but notes “its new challenge was to become a brand that anyone would talk about out loud, and just maybe, someday, wear on a T-shirt.”
Tiffany cites Pornhub brand strategists such as Madrid-based creative agency Officer & Gentleman as sources for the company’s evolution into a 1990’s style Playboyesque fashion and lifestyle brand.
“The girls were wearing sweatshirts and purses with the Playboy bunny even though they might not have seen a Playboy magazine in their lives,” Officer & Gentleman co-founder Javi Iñiguez explains, while co-founder Alex Katz says that with online porn, “everyone has the same product, so the only way you can differentiate yourself is by building a brand.”
Part of driving its brand appeal via social media is viral videos by Vendetta Studios, which is tasked with making the Pornhub brand accessible to the world — and that means PG-13 YouTube videos that are shareable on any platform.
“We only want to create advertising that can go viral. That means safe-for-work content,” Katz explains. “[Pornhub] has enough porn; they need content that’s shareable.”
This move to more mainstream marketing included launching a record label, hosting music video premieres and a porn film festival, a line of sex toys, Pornhub clothing and other branded items popular with personalities such as Kim Kardashian — whose sex tape has received more than 143 million views on the video sharing site. Kardashian confidant Kanye West was also a high-profile promoter and creative director for the first annual Pornhub Awards, which recently debuted in L.A.
“We can’t be in mainstream spaces, so we become this outsider brand that’s doing out-there things,” Katz reveals. “That’s what attracts these other brands … Pornhub has an outsider quality that draws people to them.”
From the company’s efforts at appealing to women to its embrace of diversity and more, Tiffany puts a spotlight on how Pornhub grapples with expanding its brand in a rapidly changing adult marketplace.
“Pornhub’s brand strategy is elaborate, multifaceted, funny, and cool,” Tiffany reveals. “It’s also as simple as a bunch of straight boys chasing what straight boys so often chase: a projection of ease and edge that makes them appealing to other boys like them and a veneer of caring that they hope will grant them an in with women.”
The full article is available here.
