Page 54 - AVN December 2016

FEATURE
of really just building relationships and earning the trust, because
without real data and without people accepting you and willing to
share their stories, you really don’t have much of anything.”
But Roberts didn’t just have problems with credibility
within the cannabis industry; he also had to form ties with the
mainstream sectors that would be dealing with that industry.
“The thing is, coming from AVN, I’m used to being associated
with adult, and always being on the defensive. I mean, it’s been
that way for my whole career, whether it’s dealing with banks or
dealing with anybody outside the industry. Maybe it’s not so much
that anymore, but certainly during my era, there always had to be
foresight and thought put into how do you answer the question
of what it is that you do, or what have you done, and as any of us
who’ve spent any part of our career in adult, we’ve all run into
that. I kind of came into this industry with a preconceived notion
that it would be kind of the same thing: Can you use your career
highlights to your advantage or are they going to look at that as,
‘Oh, you know, here’s the porn guy getting into our business,’
and it really could have gone either way, but for this business, just
because of what they’re dealing with on a regulatory level, it’s
been very advantageous for us because people, they get it, and you
understand them and you have stories to tell and share.
“By the way, this industry is going through what the adult
industry went through in the late ’80s,” he noted. “You have
customers and friends that you’ve now built these relationships
with, and a lot of people don’t understand it but there’s still raids,
both state and federal raids happening all the time. You’ll pick up
the phone to call a customer or to check in with them and you’ll
get the news, oh, you know, their facility was raided, so I seem
to have gone from a business with one type of raid right into a
business with another type of raid. But having lived through it,
I guess it gives you a sense of humility and understanding for
what they’re going through, as opposed to running a traditional
business where if somebody needs more time on their bill or they
want to put off a story, you come into it with a little bit different
approach and again, a little bit of understanding, and that goes a
long way.”
But in some situations, Roberts’ connection to porn is a major
asset.
“I run into people at the shows, some of whom will come up to
me, ‘Oh, yeah, we were going to Internext for all those years and
we used to do this on the website and now we’re making these
vape pens,’” Roberts said.
One thing Roberts is sure of, and is planning for, is the fact that
at some point, just like liquor after prohibition and porn after the
Miller decision, the mainstream culture will embrace marijuana
use and be looking for information about its ins and outs—and he
wants mg to be their first stop.
“We started right about the right time, but we certainly came
on before there were really a lot of mature companies who had
either ad agencies or resources to put together ads, so we were
coming in to a market not unlike what AVN came into back in
the ’80s, which is interesting because that’s where all the growth
is,” Roberts assessed. “It’s the exciting time. I mean, you’re
working with companies that don’t have any idea how to market
themselves and being able to consult with them and help them,
not only marketing through us but however they want to market.
You build those relationships. Every single magazine features
an executive or somebody from the industry, and we do feature
stories and so it’s something I see shared, and I hear stories
from different levels of Sacramento or in Washington, and you’ll
hear, ‘Oh, yeah, they got a copy of mg magazine’ because it’s the
business magazine. We’re even sold in Barnes & Noble.”
Perhaps Roberts’ biggest coup, at least so far, will be the
interview he got with Fiona Ma, the chair of the State Board of
Equalization, for mg’s December issue.
54 | AVN.com | 12.16
Photo of Veronica Rodriguez by Jay Allan
“This will be her first really aggressive public thing that she’s done, the association with
cannabis,” Roberts noted. “It’s a big deal for us; we’re the first company to do a story on her, as well
as to have here on our cover so we’re really happy that she’s chosen us over all the other outlets to
make this debut.”
So a California state official has actually come out in support of the cannabis industry?
“Well, yeah, she’s in favor because she gets to collect all the cash,” Roberts deadpanned. “She’s in
charge of collecting, but it’s nice to have somebody like that who’s actually trying to take a proactive
approach to the industry and really get out there to work with them rather than just be there kind
of against them, so it’s been nice to work with her and hear her vision on how she sees the business
growing at least in the state of California.”
Besides the print magazine, mg has its own website as well: mgretailer.com. As for the future,
Roberts plans to launch a suite of medicinal products, and even plans to get into the events
business on a B2B level, as well as doing educational conferences—and somehow, we can’t help
but compare that plan to what happened with the adult video industry, where movie distributors
evolved into movie producers, and an upstart magazine like AVN now runs adult’s biggest annual
conventions, the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and Internext, along with giving out “the Oscars
of porn” at its awards show.
Somehow the phrase “déjà vu all over again” doesn’t even begin to describe what America can
expect from this new but already thriving agricultural enterprise.