Jenna Jameson Media Commodity or Corporate Profile?

Jenna Jameson is known as the Queen of Porn and perhaps the most well known porn star of all time. Jenna has managed to do something most porn actors cannot do: become a household name. Jenna Jameson has made a name for herself through adult films, magazines, television appearances, various websites, and a best-selling book.

History

Jenna Jameson was born Jenna Massoli in 1974 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her father was a police officer and her mother was a former showgirl. When Jenna was around the age of two her mother passed away from skin cancer. After that her household became very unstable. At the age of 16, Jenna left home to live with her tattoo artist boyfriend. A year later she became a dancer at the Crazy Horse Too. Once conquering the strip club, Jenna transitioned into soft core pornography to get even with her boyfriend. A few years later she walked up to Steve Orenstein, the founder of Wicked, and told him she wanted to be the biggest porn star ever.

In 2000 Jenna Jameson and her then husband Jay Grdina founded ClubJenna. It grew very quickly and in 2006 was purchased by Playboy. Even though Playboy bought ClubJenna Grdina and Jameson are still in charge of the company.

ClubJenna started out as just an internet based company but it grew to include production and acquiring contract girls of their own. The films are distributed by Vivid (ironically the biggest competitor of Wicked). ClubJenna also manages over 150 adult themed websites. Most of their profits come from subscriptions.

Important People to the Company

Chairwoman and Co-Founder Jenna Massoli

President, CEO, and Co-Founder John Grdina

VP Merchandising Kris Grdina

Financial Information

ClubJenna made around $30 million in revenue back in 2005. Information on revenue and profits more recently are not found due to the company being under Playboy. Playboy’s acquisition of ClubJenna boosted Playboy’s stock. It is reasonable to infer the company continues to make good margins since ClubJenna is about 1/3 of Vivid Entertainment's entire revenue and in 2005 ClubJenna films were bringing in net margins of fifty percent.

Diversification

ClubJenna may have started out as just an internet company but it has expanded into many fields. You can purchase cell phone ringers of Jenna moaning, you can buy sex toys in her likeness, and there is also ClubJenna television. Not only does ClubJenna run other actresses’ websites, ClubJenna owns a website targeted towards gay male fans. Jenna Jameson also created a dating website. The most interesting piece of diversification is Virtually Jenna, which is an online computer game where the user gets to create characters and have them have sex. The synergy between ClubJenna and Virtually Jenna is very apparent. The updates to the game reflect new contract girls being added to ClubJenna and the game offers the user to virtually use the sex toys ClubJenna sells. The company is global in that anyone around the world can subscribe but the company itself is solely located in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Major Holdings

ClubJenna is a major holding of Playboy. The contract allows for Jenna Jameson to control her persona and merchandising. The most important intellectual property for ClubJenna is Briana Loves Jenna. It was the most successful porn of 2003 and continues to sell exceptionally well. Jameson’s persona is the most important asset to the company since the brand is Jenna. Through her career she managed to create a loyal fan base and any film with Jenna Jameson sells better than any other porn released.

Vertically Intergrated

ClubJenna is vertically integrated in that is owns production and parts of retail but distribution goes through Vivid or now Playboy. The company does really well with the subscriptions to the website and selling of merchandise from the website.

Competitors

There are no true competitors to ClubJenna. Most subscription based websites are run by ClubJenna. Vivid is the biggest porn distributor and producer and that is their distributor. And their parent company is Playboy. Other porn companies are smaller and much more niche market. It would be hard for another company to build a following as big or as loyal as Jenna Jameson.

What makes ClubJenna a very unique porn company is its reliance on one woman, who has retired from porn. Even though there are contract stars working solely for the ClubJenna brand, the selling point is Jenna herself. The porn industry is famous for being male dominated but Jenna Jameson managed to make an extremely profitable company in the industry which was then purchased by Playboy (which at the time had a female president).

Jenna Jameson as a media commodity

Jenna Jameson is a commodity made for the porn industry. She cultivated her look, persona, and jobs around sex. She realized there is a way for a woman in the adult entertainment industry to take control. She is an asset to the company not the other way around. Jenna's self marketing created a one woman empire. ClubJenna is just one of many products a fan can consume.

From Porn to Slaying and to think Buffy just started out as a high school student

The persona of Jenna Jameson became the face of the porn industry. Through her determination and creativity Jameson got her face and name out there. Jenna Jameson took hosting gigs for the E! network and has been interviewed by Oprah. Her accessibility has brought porn into the mainstream. Discussions about the industry and sexuality in recent years can be attributed to society becoming more accepting of porn.

I think the most interesting consequence of Jenna Jameson becoming a media commodity is the role she plays in young girls' lives. The occupation of a porn star seems more glamorous and profitable. Jenna Jameson is the poster child of a woman who has an amazing life due to porn (not counting relationship problems).

ClubJenna

Jenna Jameson

Playboy

Playboy acquiring ClubJenna

Virtually Jenna

Jenna Jameson Merchandise

Jenna Jameson's autobiography

Information on ClubJenna

Dating Website

The success of ClubJenna

Corporate Profile: Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM)

(Porn stars getting poked in more ways than one)

Corporate Profile: Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation (AIM)

History of AIM

AIM, a nonprofit organization was created in 1998 by Dr. Sharon Mitchell and Dr. Steven York. Sharon Mitchell is a former porn actress who started in the 1970s and retired from the industry in 1996. Steven York is the Medical Director for AIM. Sharon Mitchell left the industry to work in chemical dependency counseling and was contacted by the Free Speech Coalition (FSC). The FSC is a trade association for the adult entertainment industry and they contacted Mitchell to find the root of an HIV outbreak in the porn industry. Mitchell, through process of elimination, found “Patient Zero” and thus began AIM.

AIM was not supported by the producers of adult entertainment in the beginning and the support came from the actors and performers in the industry. According to the AIM website, around 1,200 adult performers are tested monthly through the clinic. After the support of the talent, adult entertainment companies now donate a significant amount of the funding for AIM.

AIM’s policies

The mission of AIM is to provide testing for sexually transmitted diseases for sex workers as well as offer counseling and scholarships for those looking to leave the sex industry. The testing for individuals is recommended to be done on a monthly basis and if a test is found positive the infected individual is quarantined from work until cured or the disease is in remission. AIM cannot prevent an individual from working but AIM advises against it.

Important Members of AIM

Dr. Sharon Mitchell, Ph.D. Human Sexuality
Executive Director

Dr. Colin Hamblin
Medical Director

Information regarding the board of directors for AIM is not freely available. (Possibly in part for their safety.)

Local Clinic

AIM does not run clinics around the country as it is stationed in the lower part of California. It has two locations, Sherman Oaks and Granada Hills. AIM, although a nonprofit designed to meet the needs of those in the adult entertainment industry, has clients that are civilians. AIM has competitors from doctor offices to other STD clinics. Their most vocal competition is AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF).

Employees of AIM

The employees of AIM are trained medical professionals who are trained for testing of STDs. They are affluent in newer types of testing that garner results in shorter periods of time. There are also counselors that work at AIM who specialize in working with people from the sex industry. They are trained to deal with all the complications that come with the unusual lifestyle. AIM, through their scholarship program, has trained two former adult film actresses into becoming counselors. The relationship between AIM and their clients is quite positive. Since AIM is run by donations their clients help support the organization. Hustler recently held a charity poker tournament to raise funds.

Relationship with the Government

AIM, like the adult entertainment industry, has an uneasy relationship with the government. OSHA is currently in a legal battle with AIM over some of their patients and practices. AIM has had issues with OSHA before and is usually lumped in with all other companies related with adult entertainment. An issue that has been plaguing the adult entertainment industry is the issue over condom use in films. AIM supports condom use but the common belief is porn viewers do not want to break fantasy by seeing a condom on screen. Vivid claims that condom use in films will lower profits by twenty percent. OSHA has started a committee to test the viability of mandating condom use in adult films.

Competitor

AHF is the main competitor and attacker of AIM. The committee on condom use in adult films was lobbied by AHF for years and recently took the issue to OSHA. According to Dr. Sharon Mitchell, AHF has a hidden agenda for attacking AIM, to take the names of HIV positive clients so they can solicit to the clients. Unlike AIM, AHF uses a test that takes up to six months to receive results. In world of porn those time frames are not realistic for someone who uses porn as a living. AIM was created specifically for the porn market while AHF is tailored for the general public.

AIM as a target

AIM has been under a lot of scrutiny lately by both AHF and OSHA. Protesters stood outside the AIM offices wearing flesh colored body suits with painted nipples and fig leaves with signs reading AIM=Death. AHF believes AIM is used by the porn companies to claim a safe working environment. Another issue brought up by AHF is client confidentiality that would be broken by the online database. (On the same note the protesters were filming clients entering the building…anonymous?) AIM received a lot of heat in 2004 with an “outbreak” of HIV in the porn community. The outbreak consisted of four people in total tested positive for HIV. Claims were made by OSHA about how poorly the situation was handled. (Although if OSHA or AHF did the testing it would have been six months before any results would have come back.)

Why AIM as a corporate profile?

Since the adult movie industry is an almost perfectly competitive market, choosing any one film company would be a disservice to represent the market as a whole, since no one company dominates the market or creates the market standard. Some companies produce more films and create synergy with companion products but since the goods/service is self gratification, the true differentiating factor is the performers not the company. Companies that have been around longer do not necessarily have an advantage over newer companies because of the high turnover rate of performers and the customers’ low brand loyalty. One of the few things that unite this diverse industry is AIM. Adult performers from amateur to contract stars receive medical care from AIM and most of the adult entertainment companies require proof of sexual health from a clinic like AIM. Another unique quality about AIM is its online database which allows employers to keep tabs on performers’ health and prevents the actors from forging results and keeps the STD rates lower in the porn community than in other group. This unique nonprofit has helped create a safer working environment for sex workers of all kinds.

AIM

Protest against AIM

Sharon Mitchell talks AIM

NPR talks with Sharon Mitchell

Condom use in Porn

Porn Industry on Condom Use

Cal-OSHA

FSC

AHF letter on condom use

AHF