Page 49 - AVN August 2018

LANSKY INC.
Meet the man who’s made himself a brand
— BY DAN MILLER —
HE DOES.
Call it the Lansky Rule.
“One of the first things I tell people that work for me is I
say, ‘Don’t be boring,’” Lansky says. “That’s just simple. It’s
OK if we fail. It’s OK if we try but don’t quite hit the mark.
Just don’t be boring.”
The 35-year-old founder of Vixen Media Group hits his
mark more often than not, whether he’s producing, directing
or leading a growing adult entertainment empire that’s on
track to hire its 100th employee by September.
Powered by a splashy marketing campaign that comes
to life on Instagram and Twitter, a natural talent for self-
promotion and an ambitious vision to challenge the public’s
perception of what a porn company can be, the former high
school dropout from Paris, France, has already rattled the
multibillion-dollar industry. But according to Lansky, “I’m
just getting started.”
“I like to look at porn as a fluid, ever-evolving beast,”
Lansky says. “I like to look at things like, ‘How can I disrupt
GGREG LANSKY APPLIES ONE COMMON PRINCIPLE TO EVERYTHING
that market a little bit?’ And we’ve been really successful
at it by not doing what everybody else is doing. Sometimes
that angers people and makes them jealous, like, ‘Oh, you’re
doing things different.’ No one says we couldn’t.
“My goal is to continue to expand the brands that we have
and to do it in a way that’s unconventional.”
Wearing all black underneath a charcoal blazer on an
80-degree afternoon in the San Fernando Valley, Lansky is
sitting in the immaculate postmodern kitchen at his Studio
City, California, headquarters, eating a late lunch of grilled
chicken, mushrooms and hardboiled eggs. It’s 3:20 on the
third Tuesday in June and the three-time AVN Director of the
Year is making final preparations for a three-week business
trip to Ibiza, Spain, and Mykonos, Greece, where he will meet
with his European production teams and shoot new scenes
with his 2017 Vixen Angel of the Year, Kendra Sunderland.
“The currency I have the least of right now is time,”
Lansky tells me. “It’s all about time management. So I get
these pre-prepped meals.
“When I started I was not the way I am right now. I didn’t
really have anybody.”
But so much has changed since Lansky and his two
partners—fellow web entrepreneurs Steve Matthysen and
Mike Miller, who co-own PornTube—launched Blacked in
May 2014, Tushy in June 2015 and Vixen in July 2016. With
Lansky at the helm they have revitalized the paysite sector
en route to building three of the biggest porn brands in the
world, combining a glamorous, high-fashion aesthetic with
exquisite cinematography, luxurious locations and beautiful
performers—without compromising the sexual heat.
The trio of imprints, along with Lansky himself, have
accounted for 39 AVN Awards since 2015—making him one
of the winningest porn producers of the decade. Lansky &
Co. started their fourth brand in October 2017, introducing a
gritty offshoot to Blacked called Blacked Raw, which features
interracial sex captured with a harder edge. A fifth website is
on the way in 2019.
“The brands have grown to the point where there’s a lot
of people now that know about Vixen that don’t know about
Greg Lansky—I mean outside the industry,” Lansky says.
“The brands have gotten to be a monster on their own. …
For me, the performers are also the brand ambassadors. Not
just the ones we have under contract—all of them.
“Honestly, right now this is the year where I feel like shit’s
going to get next level very soon.”
That next level will involve Kendra Sunderland, who won
the 2017 AVN Award for Best Boy/Girl Sex Scene for her
performance with three-time Male Performer of the Year
Mick Blue in Natural Beauties, a Vixen production that was the
first professional scene of her career.
The 23-year-old performer, who gained national notoriety
when a video of her getting topless on webcam in the Oregon
State University library went viral, was named Lansky’s first
Vixen Angel in August 2016.
The monthly honor has turned into a status symbol due in
part to the prize package—each of the 23 Vixen Angels has
received a diamond ‘V’ Tiffany necklace, custom Christian
Louboutin heels, bespoke Vixen lingerie sets and an editorial-
style photo shoot that is the centerpiece of the studio’s
trend-setting marketing campaign that month.
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