I'm of the opinion that "couple's market" has been a misnomer for several years. As women have been encouraged to be more aggressive sexually by the media and society, it follows that they want (or think they want) harder porn as well.
[Link]
| Author | Post |
|---|---|
| DJPerezMA Member  11 Posts 1/06 |  Posted - Feb 23 2006 : 3:43PMHello, All! I work in a "bricks-and-mortar" Adult Retail store that strives to appeal to many consumers, including the "Couple's Market." Over the 4 years of my employ, I've worked with the product suggestion premise that I believe has been pretty prevalent in the Industry to date (i.e. High-Production Value Features w/ Gorgeous Visuals, Plots & Characters are for "Couples"; Gonzo/Harcore/Fetish is "Men's Territory".) I've just contributed to the "Suggestions for Couples Video" thread in the 'Feature Side' forum, and I wanted to ask this additional question, but as I thought it would take the thread very off-track, I've deciced to start a new thread here. Heidi Joy Pike just wrote a provocative OP-ED piece in our favorite trade journal of note, in which she calls into question the current common wisdom of what the "Couple's Market" wants to see in video.(link below) Heidi Joy Pike on the "Couple's Market" It seems to be her expererience that she gets more inquiries from non-industry couples about products that would fall much more in the "HardCore/Gonzo" range than she ever gets about the latest so-called "Couple's Friendly" Feature releases. Heidi asserts that more couples today have a higher "erotic literacy", and that fewer couples need to "get their feet wet" in the softer side of porn. She suggests that these folks would trade all the production value and plot for some good, hot "O"-inducing sex on the screen. What are your thoughts? Is the "Women's Market / Couple's Market" approach as useful today as it has been in the past, or do we need to shake off out-moded generalizations and referesh how we look at that concept? For "bricks-and-mortar" retailers: Perhaps it's simply just a matter of getting more keyed in to what each consumer is looking for when they walk in our doors and not making assumptions? What are your thoughts?
[Link] |
| MissDianaDeVoe Member LA for now... 6 Posts 4/04 | Posted - Mar 2 2006 : 11:40PM I'm of the opinion that "couple's market" has been a misnomer for several years. As women have been encouraged to be more aggressive sexually by the media and society, it follows that they want (or think they want) harder porn as well. [Link] |
| ernestgreene2000 Member 58 Posts 9/04 | Posted - Mar 3 2006 : 1:52AM While I don't think the market I would identify as sexually adventurous couples particularly craves the kind of circus sex that predominates in much of the gonzo genre, sales figures suggest that comparatively hard material, such as the sex scenes in Fashionistas, plays well with couples if done in a slick, visually attractive format. I've made a couple of up-market all-sex shows myself for the Nina Hartley's Anal Kinksters series and they continue to do good numbers long after their release dates. The problem isn't selling these shows, it's getting them made. Producers that put up big enough money to do this kind of material right either need very strong wholesale organizations like EA's or they depend on cable licensing to recover part of the investment, and cable programmers are still stuck in the must-have-a-storyline-to-qualify mentality. It's going to take a willingness to sustain some financial risk on the part of companies and more effective marketing to the home video audience for this type of product to really come into its own. There's not doubt in my mind that the buyers are there. It's just a matter of delivering what they want over a long enough period of time to build consumer confidence. [Link] |
| Use the code below to link to this topic or a specific post. |
| URL of this thread |
| Link to this post with HTML |
| Link to this post with Forum Code |