By Chauntelle Anne Tibbals, PhD
YNOT – I have mixed feelings about South by Southwest, but when I heard this year’s incarnation of the annual music/film/interactive festival in Austin, Texas, would feature a panel entitled “Profiting in Adult: The Recession is Over”… well, I just had to brave the Hilton downtown and weasel my way in.
According to the panel description in the program guide, “The last few years the adult online industry saw a perfect storm of the recession, content piracy and lack of innovation that caused some companies to lose as much as 90 percent of their profit margins and several others to close up shop entirely. While many are still reeling and struggling to make ends meet, now that much of the smoke has cleared, who is left standing and why? Once considered recession-proof, the adult industry is starting to see a bounce back, with an influx of motivated, mature and organized individuals with startups.”
In other words, the adult industry once was considered impervious to bad business “storms;” however, the destructive trifecta of recession, content piracy and a failure to identify/develop the next big thing (ironic…) hit the business hard in recent years. The industry now appears to be in a recovery period, but not without some casualties. Who is left standing, and why?
Panelists included Pink Visual President Allison Vivas, YNOT Group LLC President and Chief Technology Officer Connor Young, YNOT Summit Director of Operations LAJ and Michael Brandvold, owner of Michael Brandvold Marketing.
Now, not to get all gushy, but that Allison Vivas…. She is one of the most powerful and well-respected persons in the adult industry today. With more than 10 years’ worth of experience in the online adult entertainment sector, Vivas often is called upon to participate in educational panels at industry sponsored events. Moreover, mainstream media often selects her to represent the industry. I recently heard Vivas speak, and I was really looking forward to learning more.
And learn more I did….
In addition to adding perspective from his own experiences, LAJ moderated the panel. He came prepared with questions that included:
- What are the ways to make money in adult? What works now?
- In addition to the potential to make money and be successful, what other benefits are there to working in the adult industry?
- What can other industries learn from adult (ostensibly, the mistakes the industry made in the recent past)?
Tweeters and other audience members were invited to pose questions to the panel via the #profitadult hashtag. Questions the panel addressed included:
- Why should consumers choose legit adult services and content over un-licensed, pirated tube sites?
- Is there a demand for micropayments, and has the industry been hurt by lack of support from apple?
- What are the biggest changes that have made to adult business models to cope with today’s environment?
Woosh! Lots of stuff, and that wasn’t even all of it! Insight offered to the packed, mostly civilian audience included what’s currently making money: porn parodies and mobile. Parodies seemed pretty obvious to me (insert latest Charlie Sheen-based title here…), but I found the idea of mobile very interesting. According to panelists, phones should be regarded as mini-computers, and the “home computer” has become community property, with adults and children vying for and occupying the same space. While consequently the PC must be maintained with all relevant users in mind, one’s phone can provide a private, unrestricted and convenient venue for viewing and ordering products.
One significant issue surrounding purchasing adult content via mobile devices, as per usual, is the stigma associated with adult. Phone service providers in the U.S. and major technology players like Apple won’t touch adult content. Such values-based restrictions certainly pose big problems for the industry and consumers; however, I would guess that entities who can find ways to negotiate around such restrictions stand to make a lot of money.
Another issue related to purchasing centers on exactly what one gets for his or her dollars. As our culture has evolved, many people no longer are happy with the “some lump sum for a monthly subscription” model. Some consumers want scene-by-scene or minute-by-minute one-click purchasing options. Some also want the ability to keep their purchases. This only makes sense. Consequently, one-click purchasing options are developing, as is the use of “cloud” storage.
Panelists also discussed competition — namely the fact the adult industry now has to compete for consumers’ time with other popular time-sucks (like Facebook) and other things that simply suck-suck (like porn tube sites populated with pirated content). To compete with “free,” panelists suggested providing users with interactivity and quality.
In other words, as the industry combats piracy in various ways, the quality of content on pirate-sheltering tube sites has decreased dramatically. That, and it’s super-fun to get to interact with your favorite anyone or anything. If consumers can pay a little something for personal attention in vivid, beautiful real time and real touch without the ick factor of breaking the law…. Well, why wouldn’t they?
There is no way to sum up all the information covered during the panel discussion. It was casual and conversational, informative and fun. The panelists interacted well and bounced ideas off one another in a very organic way, and the audience got the opportunity to learn from 40-plus years of collective industry experience.
It was awesome, and I left with some great advice from the panel: Be forward thinking and hustle. Entrepreneurial individuals must adapt constantly, but not just to get ahead. To keep up.
Popularly known as “Dr. Chauntelle,” Chauntelle Anne Tibbals is a critical social commentator who holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. Unlike other scholars who study the adult film industry, Tibbals spends quite a bit of time in and around her subject. For more of her perspective, visit the website PornValleyVantage.com, “friend” Tibbals on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.
