The Business of Seduction

Working Paper No. 10

What marketers can learn from diverse sexual pleasure brands

Before we start, let me be clear, this isn’t a new “Sex Sells” manifesto, this is call for new pleasure focused marketing that recognizes every human as person worthy of experiencing pleasure.

I’m a Creative Director in advertising, moonlighting as an author for femme-focused audio erotica. In other words: I write porn.

I create characters and scenes, I invent strange new worlds, parallel universes. I compose stories with intend, taking my listeners by the hand, guiding them through a story to the ultimate goal. And I do that pretty well. Of course, I do want them to come back for more. This whole process should sound familiar to everyone working in advertising and marketing. We all create scenes and characters, move them through new and old worlds with a clear intention to finally achieve their goal with the help of a specific product.

Both worlds, erotica and advertising, are built on the idea, that if we tell the right story, to the right person, we can make them act in a certain way. Meaning that we want to seduce them into buying something or “falling in love with themselves” (trying to keep the language clean).

Seduction: the big misunderstanding.

To seduce doesn’t mean: to talk or trick someone into doing something. Seduction isn’t about applying pressure, creating “fomo” or being annoying. Seduction is the art of allowing others to WANT what you want them to want. To successfully seduce someone, you need to be gentle, understanding, and open-minded, you need to make them feel good. It’s about creating a world where everyone feels like they can let their hair down, be their true selves, where there is no social judgement, no norms that need to be fulfilled, no pressure to behave in a certain way.

No matter if you want others to buy a car, a high-calorie snack or to participate in an act of physical pleasure you can only be successful if you make them feel welcome – on all levels.

The answer is in erotica.

Creating these spaces, for everyone to feel welcome, is something the pleasure industry is way ahead of traditional marketing. And that has everything to do with the state of society. As we all suffered through uncertainty and crises many of us were looking for a way to feel good, to feel loved, to simply be happy – and getting lucky with yourself is the easiest and cheapest way to do it. After all, who can afford a sports car to “feel alive” or have 10 liters of sugary soda a day just to “open happiness”? The pleasure industry fundamentally changed: from “male-focused quick fix” to “long-term human wellbeing” – and it has paid off, seeing humans in all their complexity fuels an ever-growing industry with new products and services popping up by the hour.

Stop looking at your audience, start feeling them.

Since I started writing audio erotica I have refused the urge to describe perfect women with long bouncy ponytails, gentle curves and cheek bones to die for. I never ever, not once, mentioned the size of any body part, my men don’t have rock hard packs, nor are they tall or smell “manly”. While my stories are whispered into the ears of strangers, they should ALL feel like they could be a part of this adventure. None of my stories is exclusively for skinny women, or white men. They are for curious humans.

Can I say the same for my ads? Nope. And I guess neither can you. And we won’t if we cling to literal images of made-up target audiences. The way we marked is not seductive, it’s not even made for real humans, it’s for a theoretical paper cut-out of a target audience.

The future is about sentient pleasure.

Some years ago, I had the pleasure to be in a room with David Shing, “Shingy”, and watch one of his keynotes (which he should totally teach in a masterclass), he said that brands need to be sentient. Back in the day we were all hyped about voice-operated systems like Siri and Alexa and so I asked: do brands need a voice? He said: no, they simply need to be sentient.

He is right (like he usually is). If we truly want to talk to real humans, we need to learn to be more sentient. We need to start asking: is this film really creating a room for people to let their hair down, am I creating a welcoming, diverse atmosphere? Let’s try asking: if my film was an audiobook, who would feel left out or even hurt? Who would stick with me to the end and how are they feeling afterwards?

This is essential. In marketing and in erotica. If it doesn’t feel good, I’m not coming back for more. So again, this isn’t Sex Sells, this is about creating communication that let’s everyone experience pleasure.