Written by FRANK STACY
In the fast-paced world of adult entertainment, sometimes we forget to appreciate the milestones that paved the way for us to evolve and grow. Adult Time may be a bastion of original content now, with dozens of series and feature films under our production umbrella, but our humble beginnings started with just one network to our name. Join me on a thrilling journey back to 2012 when Gamma Entertainment – Adult Time’s parent company, which until then only created and managed sites for 3rd-party production studios – embarked on its first-ever dip into the waters of making our own content, setting the stage for what would become the Fantasy Massage phenomenon.
Embracing the Challenge
Back at the inception of what was to be our first acquisition of an original studio, we were navigating uncharted territory. The sites were under our ownership – now what the heck do we do with them? Chief Creative Officer Bree Mills and I, a web designer at the time, thought long and hard about how we could put our own stamp on the network – and before long we were not only talking about designs or marketing strategies, we were shaping a brand’s vision and identity, reinventing things from the ground up. We were thrust into the world of having full decision-making power over a brand for the first time, and it was both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.
Unifying the Experience
What was once called “Nuru Network”, comprising Nuru Massage, All-Girl Massage, Soapy Massage, and Massage Parlor, was our canvas. The challenge? Merge these distinct sites into one cohesive platform. Enter the ‘unified Member’s Area,’ a groundbreaking development (for us at the time) that we developed to put these four series under one roof for our subscribers to navigate between them easily. Little did we know, we were laying the groundwork for future UX practices that would impact some of adult’s most big-league brands like Evil Angel, Fame Digital, Girlsway, 21Sextury, and sure enough, eventually the blueprint for Adult Time itself.
Learning on the Fly
Picture this: a team with no prior experience in producing content, now suddenly in charge of releasing multiple weekly episodes with no interruption to the user experience while we transitioned ownership. Talk about a high-stress situation in need of some good massaging! While it’s true that we had plenty of contacts and secondhand knowledge about the production process thanks to our web partners, everything would still be a “first” for us to be doing ourselves. Bree, based in Montreal back then, dove into hands-on production in L.A., a learning curve that gradually led to our understanding of the ins & outs of making adult entertainment.
Empowered To Act
Around this time Lucy, our forum and comments maestro from Gamma’s site moderation department, transitioned into the world of internal brands – giving us unprecedented two-way communication with members. For the first time, we not only had access to receiving user feedback – we had complete agency to make decisions based on this feedback too. We were no longer intermediaries – we had the power to make the changes ourselves. This would come to be a cornerstone of the brand for several years, as we decided to lean heavily into making members’ fantasies a reality. And wanting to exercise our creative control in new ways led to several new positions and hirings – video editing, content reception, managerial staff, and of course crew members and performers on set. We were forging new relationships everywhere we looked!
Understanding Member Fantasies
Rebranding was our next adventure. Say goodbye to Nuru Network, and welcome Fantasy Massage. This transformation wasn’t just about a name change; it was about embracing that newfound direct line to our customers and trying to maximize it however we could think of – member stories, suggestions, pairing ideas, and more through crowdsourced ideation. The brand, logos, and guidelines were revamped to match this new direction, all while retaining a connection to our loyal audience including those who had been fans of the original network. It was important for the product to stay true to its roots, while also evolving – we wanted to make sure our vision was an upgrade, not a sidegrade, to what came before. We knew that if we didn’t keep a pulse on which changes members liked, and which they didn’t, we could risk alienating subscribers.
Pioneering Data-Driven Insights
Enter 3XWest, a pivotal force in pre-production and programming today. Bringing a market research background and analytical mindset to the team, we began to take a much more data-driven approach to producing content than we ever had before. Fantasy Massage was his proving ground for content analysis, developing our framework for how to determine what content to shoot more/less of, which then expanded into other studios such as Girlsway and Pure Taboo, and eventually encompassing the whole of Adult Time’s original productions. In fact, years later this crucially led to an entire team dedicated to the pre-production process – taking these viewership insights and transforming them into new ideas for content that are both fresh yet familiar to massage fans.
Reflecting on Success
As we delve into the past, it’s crucial to acknowledge the trial and error that shaped Fantasy Massage. Not everything goes smoothly the first time you try, as with all things in life, but the lessons we learned became the foundation for all subsequent production projects, giving us a comprehensive understanding of the industry that allowed us to expand past one humble network into several, and eventually bringing them all under the umbrella of the Adult Time platform.
In the ever-evolving adult entertainment landscape, Fantasy Massage remains an unsung hero. As we wrap up our journey through time, it’s essential to recognize its lasting impact. In the Adult Time’s End of Year Review for 2023, the term “Massage” still reigns supreme in search queries, a testament to the enduring popularity of our very first brand, that it has thrived for over a decade under our care and is still going strong. It gives us a lot of faith and pride in our work to know that the brand still means so much, to so many people. Surely, if nothing else, it’s proof that even when we doubt ourselves… we must be doing something right!
Watch a full Fantasy Massage scene for free here!
