Chapter 3 – It Hurts Dave…

I think we can all agree that in this business, brand is everything. Fuck with your brand and very quickly you will see how important it really is. As a retailer, I listen to hundreds of studios complain daily about how other studios get all the attention. How they get left in the dust because of one thing or another or shut out of sales because of favoritism. Like any business, of course, sometimes it's who you know. However, in my experience, 9 times out of 10, it's how the studios approach their brand that really determines who floats to the top of the pool.

 

Anyone can shoot and release an adult DVD, it's not rocket science. However, not everyone can do it well and therein lays the rub. Creating a product that consumers recognize immediately as worthy of their money is something a studio dreams of accomplishing. However, to do this a studio has to respect their customer. The great punk band Crass asked, "Do they owe us a living?" While they weren't talking about porn, the question rings true. The answer, is no. I know we hate to think this, but porn isn't a necessity in life. Thus, getting a person to spend their hard earned cash on a DVD is an art that requires respect. Repackage old scenes and pretend it's a new release? Not respectful. Release movies with poor lighting, stilted sound and uninspired performances? Not respectful. Offer cheap packaging, poor disc quality and no extras? Hell you might as well go back to doing sales. Your customers notice these things and if you fuck them once, you can bet it's going to be a long while before they visit your porn universe again. Take a look at Jules Jordan, Belladonna Entertainment, or Wicked Pictures. When you make a purchase from them, you know that every scene, hell every frame has been checked for quality. The package is going to be beautiful and your dollar is going to be returned ten fold to you in hours of masturbatory bliss. Elegant Angel learned this idea when they rethought their brand and started packaging and releasing some of the best titles in the market today. I'm constantly blown away by their artwork and intensity of scenes. Vouyer Media came out of the gate from day one and completely knocked people over with DVDs that were downright brutal (in a good way). And what each of these companies, the other like minded studios in the market share is a consumer confidence in the marketplace. When they see a new release, they know they should take a peek at it, that they should consider it. Everything else is filler.

 

Again, (I feel like I have to say this occasionally) don't get me wrong. Brands are built on many facets of production. What I mentioned above are only a few points for conversation. For example, Devil's Film built a brand on "kabillion" guy gang bangs and other intense, extreme content. But like any studio with a real investment in their brand, they don't sell it short. So then why have studios sold themselves short for so long in the video on demand market?

 

When I visit a major VOD site the first thing I notice is how devoid of any real branding exists on the homepage for any studio. I see thousands of titles that I've never heard of by studios I've never even seen in the smallest backwoods stores right there with the same prominence as a new title from Zero Tolerance. I click on a link to explore something else and when I return to the homepage, poof, that title from Zero Tolerance is replaced by some other zany title from, I'm sure, Tom and Betsy in the double wide. While yes, I will agree this is a great showing for democracy, it's not the best situation for branding. Most searches on VOD sites are poor and I rarely can successfully find anything I am looking for by title. There are so many studios available that it all ends up blending into a sea of porn...like capitalized PORN as if it were the machine city in The Matrix. However, I start to think that, you know what, it is just porn. I mean, there are only so many positions, so many ways you can see penises and vaginas mashed up together that maybe, you know, it's all just one big long run on sentence. Plus, it's all just 8 cents a minute, no matter what I choose. Ultimately, what happens is the consumer is reeducated. Why do I, the consumer with my hard earned pay, want to spend $24 or $30 bucks on a DVD when I can lose my mind in the abyss of unending porn?

 

Why? See the start of this chapter, that's why.