Brian Gross has a difficult mission: to get mainstream publicity for porn stars and adult film companies.
While his clients may be well known in the adult market, many want fame in a larger world. The iconic example is Jenna Jameson, a triple-X actress who is now also a best-selling author.
“There has always been a consistent demand for mainstream notoriety,” said Gross, president of BSG Public Relations in Woodland Hills. “The adult industry can’t advertise the same ways other industries can. They can’t market their products like other industries. So they have to do it through publicity in mainstream media.”
Increasingly, that’s been the case. Mainstream media wouldn’t touch the subject a few years ago, but he pointed out that “60 Minutes,” “Nightline” and other network TV news shows have done stories recently on the adult entertainment industry.
“Years ago, a story about adult entertainment was hard to come by. Now it has become part of the norm,” Gross said.
His clients include the Adult Video News site, porn producers Penthouse Films and Pink Visual, and self-proclaimed punk-porn queen Joanna Angel.
He counts Angel, a tattooed sex star who played a significant role in popularizing body ink in the porn world, as one of his success stories.
He has positioned the adult actress as a mainstream spokeswoman for punk and Goth sex and tattoo culture. She has written columns for Spin magazine, been featured in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, and has appeared frequently in tattoo magazines. Gross pitched her onto all those pages.
He has placed Vivid Video porn actresses on the red carpets at movie premieres, and even got one onstage with musician Kid Rock.
PR veteran
Gross launched BSG in 2001, after leaving Studio City-based Vivid Entertainment, a leading adult entertainment company. He had previously worked in PR at most of the major music labels in Los Angeles, including Warner Bros. and Elektra. Gross is the only full-time employee at his agency, but he uses an extensive network of free-lancers. He has 12 clients, which include both companies and performers.
His most valuable resource is a database of journalists, combined with the knowledge of which ones are likely to accept stories about an X-rated industry.
At many media outlets, Gross runs up against a dividing line. Many accept “clean glamour content,” such as bikini and lingerie shows and photo spreads, but nothing to do with porn.
As a result, his clients are not welcome at many media outlets. But increasingly for some editors and producers, the line “gets straddled every day,” Gross said.
For example, he regularly talks to editors at Maxim, has many contacts at E Entertainment Television, and knows the raunchy talk radio circuit from national stars such as Howard Stern to small-station DJs who do sex-oriented shows.
He has secured a lot of airtime for his adult stars. Clips from a film by Jill Kelly Productions were featured on a Learning Channel documentary about the history of sex. Another client, sex toy manufacturer Big Teaze, was profiled by Barbara Walters on the ABC morning talk show “The View.” Another client, WantedList.com, was featured in Wired magazine, which called it “the Netflix of porn.”
How does he do it?
“Sex sells,” Gross said. “There are ratings sweeps on TV, and magazines that need to sell copies. As long as we’re in a sex-sells society, there will be something for me to promote.”
The biggest challenge to feature adult material on mainstream media comes from the advertising side. “Everybody knows sex sells, so the TV ratings people want to have as much sex as they can. But the ad sales people hate it,” said Ross Dale, author of the book “Embedded: Confessions of a TV Sex Journalist” and a former producer on Playboy TV’s “Sexcetera” show. “The advertisers worry they’ll get angry letters. It’s this weird thing you can have sex in there as long as you don’t call it sex.”
Dale cites an example: He recently produced a show for E Entertainment Television about sexy jobs. While the focus was on Las Vegas showgirls, the theme was purportedly about the art of dancing.
The driving force for crossover success is simple: a bigger audience.
“Adult industry press and exposure does target an existing core audience, but it doesn’t hit the casual porn consumer or new porn consumers,” said Kim Kysar, brand manager at DVD producer Pink Visual. “We are already successful within the industry, but are we well-known on college campuses, or with technology consumers? Every company wants to be a household name. Adult companies are no different.”
Kysar credits Gross for finding creative mainstream opportunities, including product placements in Hollywood movies and charity events.
“He has been more effective for Pink Visual than any of our other marketing efforts combined,” she said.
Dale cites two examples of crossover success. Playboy was considered pass & #233; until the success of the “Girls Next Door” TV show. And Howard Stern’s radio and TV shows helped boost sales in the porn world.
“I have a friend who was on the Howard Stern Show back in 2002 and overnight she was making six figures a month on her Web site,” Dale said.
