Porn vs. PR: What does making creative porn have in common with PR?

In answer to the question in the title of this blog, it turns out a surprising amount!

Even though at Fanclub we happen to work for one of the largest adult toy retailers in the UK we still didn’t know what to expect from the “Maverick Porn Makers and the Creative Industry” session at Eurobest, and how it would be relevant at all to our industry. I certainly never imagined that one day I would be sat at a media conference, next to my boss, watching porn, and discussing how this translates to our PR lives…YEP it was as awkward as it sounds.

I will save you the ins and outs of the presentation (excuse the pun) such as the debate around the jerkoffability of a porn film and skip to the very end of the session where this surprising revelation of the relevance to PR came about. Specifically when the speakers gave us their four tips to making creative porn, and here they are:

1. Be brave
2. Cross-create (cross over genres, gender stereotypes etc.)
3. Play with the narrative (Make a porn with clothes on instead of without?!)
4. Get the chemistry right (the right team makes the difference between a good porn and a really bad porn)

Basically all these elements and tips can be applied to any piece of content and particularly when working creatively.

A creative piece of work in the PR industry has to be brave; if you don’t take a risk then you are never ever being truly creative. Brave and daring work that pushes boundaries wins awards, can change opinions and prompt an action – all things that PR agencies want. Cross creating or mashing up ideas is a highly successful tactic in PR – for example in our recent campaign for Tesco Mobile we took the phenomenon of crop circles that have been around for years and mashed it up with a modern phenomenon by creating an emoji crop circle, and people loved it. See, I told you they relate!

So next time you are watching porn, I hope you think about this blog and it inspires you to think more creatively about your work. Actually maybe don’t think about the blog, I imagine that’s the last thing you want to think about in that situation.

Anyway, if you would like to hear more about creative PR and less about porn, do drop us an email at hello@fanclubpr.com.