No question that there are a lot of big companies out there that do a great job at marketing their brand and their product(s) - and then there is PornHub.
PornHub is absolutely amazing at marketing - they managed to build a freaking porn site into a worldwide known brand with a great image.
But what are they doing? How can a porn site create such a big following? After reading the "broken laptop" story (more about that later) I was hooked and I decided to dive into their great marketing campaigns, at first it was just for fun (because they are funny as hell) but there are actually a lot of things to learn from them about marketing and branding. So I thought it's worth a post to share my research.
PornHub isn't re-inventing the wheel. Nor is their product anything special, it's just a plain porn site. It's their way of selling it that makes it so special.
Let's dissect their marketing to see what makes them so great.
First off, they bring their absolute A Game when it comes to social media.
Their twitter is an absolute must follow if you want to learn how to rock social media. I could literally post picture after picture, but this would make this thread pretty un-readable, so here's just one example:
They know how virality works.
PornHub knows that most people wouldn't retweet a high-level-erotic photo (aka a photo of their product.)
So they mastered the art of how virality works. Nearly every image they post has the potential to go viral.
They go the extra mile and make little things, that will put a smile on your face.
On april 1st PornHub changed their logo to CornHub.
Instead of showing the usual videos, their home page was filled with .. well, with corn porns.
Yesterday, when the new Game of Thrones season started, they changed their logo into the Game of Thrones logo font.
They know how to get media attention.
In 2013 they started a campaign to find a creative director for their next national advertisement and asked people to submit an ad design.
Some of the entries were absolutely hilarious.
They got a lot of attention from the mainstream media for it, worldwide.
But that's not all, maybe some of you already heard or read about the "broken laptop" story I already mentioned above.
If not, here it is.
Actually it was just a guy posting that he had to smack in his laptop, because it decided to freeze up while he was on PornHub, when his mom came up the stairs.
PornHub understood his tragic situation and sent him a special gift...
When this happened, it was all over social media. Another great marketing by PornHub gone viral.
Then we have their insights infographics.
PornHub likes to publish infographics, filled with information on what search terms are typed into their site by gender, age, nationality, etc.
They also like to use events like christmas or the new Star Wars movie to publish their insights.
With their great sense for humor they not only made a taboo topic mainstream, they also make it really hard to not like them.
I really like the way they create their marketing campaigns and just everything with clever double meanings and great humour.
This way of approaching marketing may not fit to every type of business (especially B2B ones), but for those that it does fit to,
there's a lot that can be learnt from PornHub.
PornHub is absolutely amazing at marketing - they managed to build a freaking porn site into a worldwide known brand with a great image.
But what are they doing? How can a porn site create such a big following? After reading the "broken laptop" story (more about that later) I was hooked and I decided to dive into their great marketing campaigns, at first it was just for fun (because they are funny as hell) but there are actually a lot of things to learn from them about marketing and branding. So I thought it's worth a post to share my research.
PornHub isn't re-inventing the wheel. Nor is their product anything special, it's just a plain porn site. It's their way of selling it that makes it so special.
Let's dissect their marketing to see what makes them so great.
First off, they bring their absolute A Game when it comes to social media.
Their twitter is an absolute must follow if you want to learn how to rock social media. I could literally post picture after picture, but this would make this thread pretty un-readable, so here's just one example:
They know how virality works.
PornHub knows that most people wouldn't retweet a high-level-erotic photo (aka a photo of their product.)
So they mastered the art of how virality works. Nearly every image they post has the potential to go viral.
They go the extra mile and make little things, that will put a smile on your face.
On april 1st PornHub changed their logo to CornHub.
Instead of showing the usual videos, their home page was filled with .. well, with corn porns.
Yesterday, when the new Game of Thrones season started, they changed their logo into the Game of Thrones logo font.
They know how to get media attention.
In 2013 they started a campaign to find a creative director for their next national advertisement and asked people to submit an ad design.
Some of the entries were absolutely hilarious.
They got a lot of attention from the mainstream media for it, worldwide.
But that's not all, maybe some of you already heard or read about the "broken laptop" story I already mentioned above.
If not, here it is.
Actually it was just a guy posting that he had to smack in his laptop, because it decided to freeze up while he was on PornHub, when his mom came up the stairs.
PornHub understood his tragic situation and sent him a special gift...
When this happened, it was all over social media. Another great marketing by PornHub gone viral.
Then we have their insights infographics.
PornHub likes to publish infographics, filled with information on what search terms are typed into their site by gender, age, nationality, etc.
They also like to use events like christmas or the new Star Wars movie to publish their insights.
With their great sense for humor they not only made a taboo topic mainstream, they also make it really hard to not like them.
I really like the way they create their marketing campaigns and just everything with clever double meanings and great humour.
This way of approaching marketing may not fit to every type of business (especially B2B ones), but for those that it does fit to,
there's a lot that can be learnt from PornHub.
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