It's a time of great change in the sex toy industry. On the one hand an industry that has been, for almost 60 years, controlled by a small number of big players, is seeing increasing competition from small and medium sized manufacturers who are bringing basic business sense to a product category that has thrived often in spite of itself. On the other, the "big players" are in danger of being eclipsed by much bigger players, huge multinational corporations (such as SSL, Church and Dwight, and most recently, Phillips) moving into the sex toy market, wide eyed with excitement over huge profit margins and, what often seems like, an easy sell.
If you believe that capitalism is good, then you could say that the ultimate winner in all this is the consumer. Partly because I'm not sure about capitalism, and partly because I'm more interested in education than commerce, I'm skeptical that a more sophisticated commercialization of sexual desire is in fact any better than what we currently have.
In any case, because I'm a sex toy industry nerd I follow all of this with great interest. I want the industry to continue developing. And while I have high hopes, often I'm reminded that evolution, particularly when sex is involved, can take time. Take two recent business pieces on the sex toy industry. JimmyJane was given a start up profile in Reuters small business news. The piece is interesting, and refreshingly it's written just as it would be for any other start up. But the vision of the company, and particularly it's founder, Ethan Imboden, is undercut by the fact that most of it's backers are unwilling to associate themselves with the investment. In the article one investor chalks this up to puritanism in Silicon Valley.
This may or may not be a problem, but it's interesting to think about how, as sexual pleasure products become less stigmatized and more investors flock to this highly profitable category, this quintessentially American relationship to sex will play out in a purely capitalist arena. Once the shareholders of WalMart see the writing on the wall, will they be able to say no to a sexual pleasure section in their stores? And what happens if it turns out, as Phillips may have discovered, that the way to make the most money is to be explicit about the products you sell?
A different kind of conflict is seen in this marketing profile of Lovehoney. Lovehoney is a UK based online sex toy retailer, and one of the hardest working adult websites in the world. Creative, flexible, and tenacious, there isn't a marketing approach Lovehoney hasn't tried, and they have been ahead of the curve among online adult retailers on a number of fronts. Which is partly why this interview with company co-founder Neal Slateford was so disappointing. Where the Reuters piece was good because it treated Jimmyjane like any other business, the Econsultancy profile throws lobs at Lovehoney and seems to think that reprinting a company press release is enough if the company sells sex toys. Can you imagine any other marketing profile where we would learn nothing about the companies market share, their strategies, or their vision of the future of the industry? To be fair, this isn't actually journalism, it's a profile on a organizations website. But the step backward here is still worth noting. Lovehoney's reticence to talk about the industry, to step ahead and know that while others may follow, you can't break through if you're hiding in the shadows, feels like a particularly old sex toy industry way of doing business.
Very interesting blog you’ve written. Was a good read.