With millions of users and an average of 115 million visits per day in 2019, Pornhub’s website must be doing something right within its marketing department. Last year was certainly a big year for this adult website, and it totaled 42 billion visits from people all over the world. This means that there’s plenty that others can learn simply by observing the media strategies that Pornhub has been developing.
Although people are not quite ready to start their work day by driving by a “not safe for work” (NSFW) billboard, Pornhub has a great strategy for creating buzz aroundthe topic of porn, instead of aboutit. The way its marketing team does this is by creating campaigns and strategies that are amusing, slightly shocking and nuanced in a way that adults can understand without worrying about the children.
Influencer marketing
There are plenty of famous people in the porn world; however, after looking into the data they gathered, the company noticed a lot of its users were into rap music. Knowing this, they decided to try their hand with influencer marketing, and chose the rapper Waka Flocka Flame as their representative. The rapper announced he would be releasing his sex tape, which would be produced by Pornhub. However, this announcement was made on April Fools’ Day, and what actually ended up happening was the rapper released a track, with a NSFW music video that was produced by the company. From there, Pornhub founded Pornhub Records and garnered plenty of attention from the media. Although they haven’t done much since then, aside from announcing a song contest for a Pornhub anthem, the idea nevertheless got plenty of mainstream attention.
Outside-of-the-box charity campaigns
Pornhub has its own charitable initiative, Pornhub Cares, where they partner with various campaigns. For this particular one, Pornhub worked alongside Ocean Polymers, a recycling technology company whose goal is to clean the oceans with self-sustainable ships. The agency decided to shoot an adult film on a beach, as they tend to be popular. The catch here was that usually, beaches aren’t clean like in movies or adult films. That’s when the agency decided it would shoot on one of the dirtiest beaches in the world, while people wearing suites branded by Pornhub picked up trash around the couple.
Exploring the mainstream
The company decided to venture into the mainstream world and launched several products, including a VR headset and a VPN service. This is a great company with brilliant marketing—and 5WPR is PR agency of record for Pornhub.
