By Peter Berton

SAN FRANCISCO – When Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime recently displayed a tendency toward homophobic fascist bigotry, adult e-tailer GameLink took action. In launching a promotional campaign called “Send a Dildo to Vladimir Putin,” the company hoped not only to make a humorous political statement, but also to raise its profile among politically savvy consumers.

The gambit worked, according to Vice President of Business Development Jeff “Dillionaire” Dillon. In fact, most of the time GameLink’s attempts to boost sales by associating special deals with world news turn out well.

But occasionally the strategy flops.

For instance, the company responded to the devastation left in Hurricane Sandy’s wake by offering stranded Northeasterners 25 percent off any adult video or toy purchase. Even though GameLink planned to donate some proceeds to the Red Cross, the company took a public-image hit. Some consumers and media outlets — vocal ones, at that — viewed the promotion as cynical opportunism.

YNOT sat down with Dillon to learn more about GameLink’s marketing philosophy.

YNOT: GameLink has been around for a long time, hasn’t it?

Jeff Dillon: GameLink was the first company to sell adult material online and has been in business since 1993. That’s 20 years, if you’re counting. We sell video on demand — pay-per-minute, mobile, stream-to-own, download-to-own — DVDs, sex toys, lingerie and penis pills.

I have been with the company for a little more than 10 years now. It’s been interesting watching us transition as consumer habits change with their preferred format of consumption. When I started, VOD was still in its infancy and VHS and DVD were netting $12 to $50 per sale per customer.

I remember having a hard time explaining VOD rights to a lot of producers, because they couldn’t conceptually understand how someone could watch a movie on their computer, but I guess this ignorance was some producers’ demise.

The company likes to design edgy, news-related promotions for its products. Why?

Because we like to get stories picked up outside of the standard adult news channels. It’s not newsworthy if someone is releasing a new movie or a new tour update for a site. People in the adult business are conditioned to not even notice that type of news.

Most news channels outside of adult are looking for something to talk about, and we give them something to talk about. Once you give them something to talk about, and if they like you, they’ll be in touch again when you have another story.

What was the company’s first promotion of this kind?

I did some [public relations] when we first launched mobile, and the iPhone was the hottest thing on the market. I poked fun at Steve Jobs and how he was so against porn. It seemed very ironic that the man who produced the legendary commercial “1984” — which was all about conforming and anti “The Man” — became “The Man” and created a war against a free market.

Jobs was quoted as saying “You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go — so we’re not going to go there.”

In April of that year, according to popular technology blog TechCrunch, Jobs advised in an email “…we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone.”

I was quoted in that same blog posting: “Maybe Mr. Jobs is so dead-set against having porn on the iPhone because he’s never ‘gone there’ and actually watched porn on the iPhone. So, GameLink is inviting Mr. Jobs to finally ‘go there’ by testing out GameLink’s mobile site offering and seeing how gratifying streaming porn on the iPhone can be.”

What response did you get?

I didn’t get much at the time, except to get a few Mac fan boys all fired up and running to defend their king. I did have some fun with some of the commenters.

What are the most successful news-related promotions GameLink has done?

That’s hard to stay. It’s been a good couple of years for getting picked up in the press.

A couple come to mind. Last year when Gen. [David] Petraeus [retired military commander and former CIA chief] was caught boning [socialite] Jill Kelley, I got a story out about how our sales and search results went up X percent because people were confusing her with the porn star Jill Kelly. That story got picked up online, on TMZ’s TV show, and then a bunch of news blogs and radio shows picked it up.

Also, I did some PR around “Leap Motion,” some new technology we are introducing to the adult market. That got a ton of play in the tech world.

What about the Hurricane Sandy media flak? That must have been unpleasant. What did you learn?

What media flak?

Just kidding! Just kidding!

With PR you have to be quick, and sometimes you react too quickly with good intentions, but the effort comes off badly or in poor taste. The biggest lesson I learned from [the Hurricane Sandy debacle] is there are certain situations that are not PR-worthy.

What’s the story behind the Dildos for Putin campaign, and how is it going?

Having a very diverse work force, we pride ourselves on sexual freedom and equality, so we were outraged at Putin’s recent actions against the gay community. There’s also an Olympics angle, since Russia is hosting the 2014 Winter Games. Putin’s stance on human rights could put athletes’ lives in danger.

A small group started talking about sending Putin dildos on Facebook, and it just blew up. All of a sudden, the story became international news. I’m doing radio interviews and being featured in Swiss newspapers.

What advice would you give other companies that might want to launch a news-themed campaign?

Think about what you’re doing or could be doing and how it relates to the news. Keep in mind most news topics have a very short shelf life. People’s attention spans are short, too, so you need to strike while the iron is hot. You don’t have a week or two weeks once you hear a relevant news story. You have 48 hours.

Also, have a thick skin. If you make the news, people will always complain about something. It’s part of the process to hear some shit-talking, but at least people are talking.

I don’t agree with the motto “any PR is good PR.” If you believe that, go talk to George Zimmerman.