The Wet Dream of Marketing: Pornhub Case Study

No matter if you’re into polishing the pearl, double clicking the mouse, paddling the pink canoe or arguing with Henry Longfellow, painting the ceiling and shooting for the moon, you’ve come across porn. And porn is all about engagement, isn’t it?

So how can porn be engaging?

Seems like a silly question, but the engagement I’m talking about is not only about clearing the browser’s history, creating compilations of favorite videos or about a person locked in a room, sitting in front of a computer with headphones on, keeping the tissue paper at a hand’s reach.

It seems that porn, and specifically Pornhub, can drive also another kind of engagement.

A Marketing Engagement

To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work.

Guys and gals at Pornhub seem cut out to work in marketing. Or adult industry. As you’ll see in a moment, they know how to do good. Good marketing, of course.

Sex sells is the oldest trick in the book. Pornography is one of the most googled queries and 30% of entire Web traffic is dedicated to porn, though the recent Pokemon GO’s breathing down pornography’s neck. Sorry for killing it and turning you off, but don’t forget to check our article on how to use this game to make profits!

The idea of sex sells has been embraced by marketers and advertisers a long time ago. Porn sites actually don’t need advertising, yet, Pornhub tries to sell porn to the public discourse.

But Why?

It seems that Pornhub tries to bring pornography to mainstream as it’s gradually becoming less of a taboo. In the US, porn business is relatively popular and with the development of the Internet and social media, it’s at a hand’s reach. Not so long ago a person had to go to a store and buy or borrow a VHS tape. Now, each and every person with the access to the Internet is a few clicks away from porn.

Is it becoming an integral part of people’s life? The thing is that with all its dangers, porn is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our society. Sex and objectification of women are bread and butter on the TV and in porn. Parents are aware of the fact that thanks to the Internet their children are exposed to porn already during their teen years. It’s happening.

Porn Goes Social

For some people, Pornhub means the adrenaline rush formula 1 drivers and bull fighters can only dream of, and for others, like us, here, today, it’s a brand that does marketing and advertising awesomely.

At the first glance at Pornhub’s Twitter, you already know they can play this game. Actually, the brand’s Twitter is called Pornhub ARIA, since Aria is the community manager out there.

Meet Aria who’s happily performing the best job ever.

Pornhub’s Community Manager on Twitter engages fans in really friendly and laid back conversations connected to porn, and some of their tweets are rather NSFW.

Also, in comparison with xvideos.com, which is another top porn search engine, Pornhub’s Twitter activity is undoubtedly higher. Just take a look at a graph from our tool:

There was one case that earned Pornhub its piece-of-art-status in the museum of the Internet. There was a guy in the middle of enjoying the pleasures of abundant archives of Pornhub. He heard his mother coming, but unfortunately, his PC froze. The guy didn’t lose it, used good judgment and smashed the screen. Soon after, he tweeted about his unhappy ending mentioning Pornhub. To his surprise, Pornhub decided to reward him for his act of undivided loyalty.

Have a look at some other pieces of Pornhub’s content.

Pornhub Premium Gifting Service

The ad turned immensely successful with millions of views, lots of shares, Gizmodo ad of the year, it appeared in Telegraph and Huffington Post. Hats off to the marketing team!

A G-Rated Ad In the Middle of Times Square

Even though this family-friendly ad has been pulled down after just two days, the Internet and media managed to feature the ad in media worldwide.

Sexploration

Pornhub started a crowdfunding campaign to collect 3.4 million dollars to launch, let’s call it a porn space program. They wanted to shoot a porn video in space. Not a joke. The initiative immediately went viral and got featured on Discovery, Vice, The Washington Post and other notable media.

Wankband

Let’s men love the planet by loving themselves. This innovative and environment-friendly device is supposed to generate energy by motion. If you know what I mean.

Charity

Pornhub came out with Pornhub Gives America Wood which was an effort to make the US a greener country by planting trees. After each 100 Big Dick videos watched, Pornhub pledged to plant a tree.

With Save the Boobs charity campaign, Pornhub decided to support the fight with breast cancer. It involved 1 cent donation for every 30 videos watched in Small Tits and Big Tits categories. Gathered money allowed to sponsor Boob Bus – a mobile breast cancer screening service.

Pornhub Ads

They are just brilliant. Take a look.

Reports on Viewership

From time to time, Pornhub shares their data analysis which usually is overwhelming. Pornhub Insights regularly provide fans with data regarding viewership. And the great thing is that they analyze globally. Most popular search queries in Russia? There you go. Search queries after the last episode of Game of Thrones? There you have it.

What’s important, these reports usually go viral and are investigated also by people who don’t watch porn.

Is Pornhub a Mainstream Brand?

The popularity of Pornhub in so overwhelming that even if you’re not into porn, you’ve probably heard about it. 50 million visitors daily, ads and viral content spread the word and get exposure.

Corey Price of Pornhub speaks openly:

We want to push the conversation into the general public as something that’s acceptable to talk about, while letting people know that watching porn shouldn’t be an underground activity that’s to be seen as shameful. Everyone does it, why not just bring that out in the open? The reason it causes a stir is due to an already accepted set of social norms.

With its branding strategy, Pornhub’s definitely becoming a part of pop culture. Savy marketing, a close cooperation with adult industry, data analysis on viewership, numerous infographics construct the image of a real brand.