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Sex Toy Story

An interesting article from the Guardian. Brief review of developments in the sex toy industry and looking at how vibrators have gone mainstream. The role of marketing in this is food for thought. Which came (if you'll pardon the pun hurr hurr) first? Did marketing strategies and tactics contribute to sexual pleasure being increasingly diverse and open, or did it merely follow up and exploit these for commercial purposes?

Reading around the topic is fascinating and food for thought for marketers. Sex is of course one of the go-to settings for brand image and promise. And trends in sexuality offer the market researcher a wealth of potential information for interpreting wider societal change. Businesses operating within the sector tend to be particularly focused on their consumer's needs and wants (again innuendo very much intended) and to have innovative marketing strategies ahead of their time. An excellent article from the Economist (Sept 2015) highlights how pornographers pioneered many of the internet tools now taken fr granted, such as online payments.

Some inspiration for marketing debate then. And it happens to be the perfect follow up to last term's very successful classroom debate of sex robots. Now that is going to be a marketing case study I hope to see in around Kotler's 2020 edition.

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