Playboy vs. SuicideGirls / 05.13.08
It has been said more times than naught that the porn* industry seems to always leading the technology curve, but as of the past couple of years that hasn’t been the case. Today I am going to look at two very successful franchises, Playboy and SuicideGirls (both NSFW), to see how they do in competing with each other along with keeping up with the technology curve.
SuicideGirls
I’m starting off with SG because they were ahead of the curve a couple of years ago with regards to features they offer on their site. There are plenty of sites that provide their own images of women and you can find these images all over the web for free so SG had to step up and offer their audience something they couldn’t find elsewhere, especially since they charge a monthly fee to join.
This is a social networking site more than anything else. You are given a profile, groups and places to chat. Mixed this with the women and you have a site that brings you closer to the content so to speak than other sites in their genre. I have no doubt they could get away with neglecting these features because of the women, but they were smart in realizing that porn is a commodity on the web today and you need something with more investment for people to come back.
What I mean by investment is that you want your site to become a destination where people invest their time in because then they feel the need to return over and over again. Nobody likes to think that they wasted their time and when we invest our time into doing something we are less likely to give it up.
More Revenue
SG takes their revenue model a step further by offering a store with many items and have started to publish a magazine as well. This is a real business people. As much as we all love Web 2.0 and the great stuff that it offers, this is the kind of business you want to get behind because you can see the money changing hands here.
Playboy
Playboy is a dynasty. It doesn’t get mentioned in business school or brand circles, but they have the kind of brand that other companies would die for. They have a problem with the web though. Their business is women and as mentioned before, you can get women anywhere on the web so what else can you offer?
They offer you the chance to signup for three different clubs with different features. These can range from special interviews to videos to more pictures. If I’m resourceful enough I can get that anyways by doing a simple search. Is that right? No, but we can’t pretend it doesn’t happen. What does Playboy offer that I can’t go around searching for free? Nothing.
With how beautiful the Playboy models are and how worshipped they are by men across the world why wouldn’t they go the SG route and offer up a community that connects men even closer to the models? No doubt women pose for Playboy for the fame and fortune, but imagine being able to establish a fanbase that can last over an extended period of time beyond your one photoshoot in the magazine. What woman wouldn’t jump at that opportunity?
Last week it was reported that Playboy posted a quarterly loss causing its shares to drop.
The worse-than-expected results illustrate the trouble that Playboy and other publishers and television companies face as more people get their entertainment online, and often for free.
They are stuck in the old fashioned publishing model where you have to pay to see everything. I’m not saying they should be giving their stuff away for free, but there are so many different ways to utilize their strong brand you have to wonder why more effort isn’t being put into their online venture.
Online revenue fell 3 percent to $15.2 million because of lower pay site revenue. Hefner said the company is redesigning the Playboy.com website to attract more visitors and create a better portal to its other properties.
The site does need an overhaul as the homepage and subpages are outdated, but what features are they going to bring in to attract more people and cause them to stay? More pictures won’t necessarily do the trick because again we can get those for free. Give me a community around the bunnies that makes me feel like I have a chance with them (this is how guys think) and you might have a paying customer.
Porn and Music
If anything, the adult entertainment industry is going through the same growing pains that the music and movie industries are going through now. No longer do they have a tight grip on their content and the ability to charge premium prices for it. They must step out of their comfort zone if they wish to continue to increase revenues, otherwise they will become nothing more than bit players in the world.
Lucky for them they can take a glance at SG to see how they can move forward and expand their business even more than before. Hell, any business on the web would be wise to study SG’s model to see if they can gleam anything from it.
* For the sake of this article what Playboy and SuicideGirls offer is being considered porn.