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The New .XXX Ad Campaign: What Happens When Porn Grows Up?

Hey Nina, How much did it take for you to sell out the industry???

Ad agency M&C Saatchi put together an off-color little series of ads for the new .XXX domain. Called “Porn Is Moving,” the pics (somewhat SFW) feature porn ladies posed like sex dolls being suggestively hauled off a dismantled set by disgruntled movers. Check ’em out below.



The branding campaign has also expanded to Twitter, where you’ll find the sleek new .xxx logo emblazoned on a sterile, corporate-looking page and a big link to BUY .XXX. It looks like any other company. Even the ads aren’t particularly scandalous or edgy: They simply suggest that the online sex industry should be treated like any other mainstream corporate entity. Porn is moving; please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds. Companies, register your domain names (or you’re screwed).

Ironically, as porn is relegated to its own Internet corner, it’s somehow become more legitimate. What once crept its way into everyday, ho-hum Web publishing via pop-up ads, spam and normal-sounding URLs you didn’t realize were old-men threesomes now has a home all to itself. Porn has graduated and entered the big leagues. It has to discard the tissues, take off its robe, shave, move out of Mom and Dad’s house, buy a condo and put on a suit and tie. There are domain names to sell!

Which is kind of boring. How will porn troll us now? Actually, it’s already started — now that .xxx domains exist, companies are scrambling to buy them up so no one starts a WhiteHouse.xxx or a RichardBranson.xxx. No one saw this coming. It’s really funny (for us)!

Ultimately, legitimizing the sex industry and porn markets is a good thing for those who work in it. Despite what this ad campaign would have you believe, sex workers are not dolls to be moved — they’re human beings, with personal lives and interests beyond sexual athleticism, and they’re too often treated like second-class citizens. Legitimizing the industry could lead to better health regulations and improved work conditions. Exploitation would be seriously reduced. One would hope.

Or maybe none of it will matter. Maybe sites like PornHub (who knows what its domain is now) will expand and undercut and totally wipe out major production companies until no new content is produced, just the same vids from the last 10 years (and sketchy, sometimes criminal, amateur stuff) circling around the net. But as of now, it’s still a multibillion-dollar industry with newly increased corporate leverage.

Who knows what the future will bring.

http://hypervocal.com/news/2012/the-new-xxx-ad-campaign-what-happens-when-porn-grows-up/#

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  • This ad campaign tells you everything you need to know about how the people at ICM Registry -- a parasitical entity which has been given license to feed off of adult online businesses -- envision "ideal" adult performers: mute, easily positioned, decorative, lures for $.

  • I assume that that question for "Nina" was targeted towards Nina Mercedez, who was one of the first porn performers (along with Stormy Daniels) to promote .XXX, right?

    Anthony

  • I love the way the text of the PR acknowledges the disgusting and degrading anti-sex worker prejudice of the ad campaign, yet seeks to have it both ways:

    "Despite what this ad campaign would have you believe, sex workers are not dolls to be moved — they’re human beings, with personal lives and interests beyond sexual athleticism, and they’re too often treated like second-class citizens."

    I think, in honor of Black History Month, ICM and M&C Saatchi should produce a series of Stepin Fetchit ads in order to demonstrate that there's so much more to black people than being household help.

    • Note that it's the Madison Ave spin that calls the ads "off-color" -- that's the cutesy, PC way to say "sexually exploitative."

      Right, because people who believe in freedom of expression, and who provide entertainment that is sought-after by consenting adults, deserve to be put down, objectified, condescended to and exploited in ad campaigns by organizations which exists solely to extort value from their labors.

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