Sex sells. It’s a tired little bromide that the ad industry has been leaning on for a while now. Sex compels people to buy. But does that same proven logic hold true when your customers are advertisers? Apparently not.
The Midwest Teen Sex Show, a monthly program that uses irreverent humor to teach kids about responsible sexual practices, has been around for almost a year. The show is consistently ranked in the the top 10 in iTunes’ “Health” category with about 150,000 subscribers and another 250,000 viewers that tune in for every episode on their website. The show’s producer/star/muse, Nikol Hasler, and her partners in crime have recently been making the rounds in the mainstream media.
All this popularity must have lead to some serious dough, right? Nope. Not at all. Nary a nickel. Well, perhaps a nickel or two but not a whole bunch more.
Earlier this week, Nikol put this out on Twitter: “Having sad discussion with [our crew] about lack of funds. Trying to determine how much longer we’ll be able to do this.“ The answer, Nikol tells me, is two more episoddes.
According to Nikol, the group has made about $1,000, which is more than disappointing considering their collective $20,000 investment (not to mention Nikol losing her day job due to her Midwest duties).
The income has come primarily from Revver payments, with a litte help from viewer donations and merchandise sales. They have also employed the services of Wizzard Media, a company that sells ad time on behalf of popular independent web shows such as Tiki Bar TV and Keith and the Girl, but the edgy nature of their content isn’t doing much to attract sponsors. Sure, there has been talk of bigger and better projects with production companies and networks that could pay off lucrative dividends, but at this point that’s all it is. Talk.
Sponsorship is what they really need in order to continue, barring an Alive in Baghdad-style rally of viewer support (which also isn’t necessarily paying the bills). But that’s going to be tough considering that many advertisers look to pair their messaging with “brand-safe” content. And brand-safe this ain’t…which is kinda the point.
Hey Trojan Man, PleasureMAX, Babeland, and other “un-safe” brands promoting safe sex! Think about promoting your product via Midwest Teen Sex.
Comments
There’s an important thing missing from this piece, which is that there are many more challenges in selling ads for a sex ed/info/entertainment product that is designed for teenagers than it is to sell ad space for sexual content intended for adults.
Most porn sites have affiliate programs – you sign up, you promote their content with links or images on your own site or sidebar, and you get up to 50% of the sign up fee when someone clicks through and signs up for the porn site after discovering the content on your site. The Midwest Teen Sex Show cannot utilize porn affiliate programs, because their target audience is under the age of 18 and it would be wholly inappropriate. Making deals and money when you’ve got sexual content is one thing – sure, you’ll often be limited to getting ad money from adult sites, but the potential is there. But when you’re dealing with content about sex for teenagers, most advertisers won’t touch it with a ten foot pole. That is the crux of the MTSS problem, not the fact that their content is about sex.
It goes:
Do it on a shoe string -> Monetize -> Get investment -> Success
Not:
Get investment -> Run out of money -> Fail to monetize -> Failure
Man. Doesn’t anyone look into profit margins before starting a company anymore? I don’t think most ‘internet entrepreneurs’ get how little money there is to be made on the internet in the first place.
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