Julia Margo's career reads like a girl power manifesto.
We know her as the driving force behind pleasure brand Hot Octopuss, but before she graced the sex toy space with her presence, she was kicking ass all over Great Britain.
We won’t rest until all marketing for sex toys includes a wide range of diverse images and voices, not just those of the young and typically beautiful!
Margo began her trek as a journalist for a major British publication right out of university. She then went on to advise two U.K. Prime Ministers as part of a political think tank on family, crime and education policy. During this time, she also published several books, traveled abroad to research family policy all over the world, and did several TV documentaries on social change.
Directly after, Margo switched to managing teams in the consumer research and economics sector, and then she finally settled into her last vanilla gig: running a health charity that funded medical research.
Is it therefore any wonder Hot Octopuss is one of the best-marketed, most progressive boutique brands in the pleasure industry?
Margo embodies everything a female sextech CEO requires for unprecedented success: natural smarts, carefully honed talent, and an insane dedication to the work.
However, Margo is never too classy to “give the finger” to homophobia, slut shaming, and body issues and sex negativity, as evidenced by her latest marketing campaign for the Hot Octopuss DiGiT wearable bullet vibe.
As 2020 marches on, Margo tells XBIZ that her team will be pumping out more empowering messages and thoughtful, intuitive product designs. As Hot Octopuss has consistently proven, how could the industry expect anything less from the U.K.'s most voracious breaker of glass ceilings?
Margo gives the rest of us seemingly lazy chumps a peek into what it takes to be a stigma-stomping super woman in the age of sextech for this month's edition of Women in Adult.
XBIZ: Why are you excited right this very moment to take Hot Octopuss into 2020?
Julia Margo: Last year was a very challenging but incredible year for us. We delivered seven new products, including updating our flagship Pulse range, as well as hired several new staff, re-launched our website and packaging, and did some breakthrough campaigns featuring the voices of people who may feel marginalized by current narratives on what is “sexy.” Seeing these projects come to fruition is hugely motivating and exciting and just makes me want to do more! We feel a great sense of responsibility to our customers and audience to continue to campaign for representation of a much wider range of people in B2C marketing and PR.
I think Hot Octopuss as a brand is really finding its place in the market right now. Obviously all brands have to constantly shift and progress their identity as they grow, and we are no different, but the positive response to our campaigns around inclusivity has really focused our attention on this aspect of our work and we have a very clear path ahead in terms of where we want to go. We are very proud to be leading the way in highlighting the role that sex toys can play for trans people, older people and disabled people. This year will see us focus even more on the over-50s audience, as we are very interested in vulva-owners who are experiencing perimenopause and menopause and see this as a very important and high-potential consumer group. We will also continue to focus on ED [erectile dysfunction], highlighting the prevalence of ED, de-stigmatizing the issue and marketing our products as toys that you can use with ED.
This is going to be another big growth year for us where we see some important products finally come to market after several years in development. We are particularly excited to launch new vulva and anal toys that use the same tech as our bestselling Jett penis toy, as well as continuing to grow in the U.S. and Europe. We will also be focusing on specific markets, such as Russia and Australia and the disabled market.
XBIZ: Where do you draw inspiration for your company's product designs and marketing messages?
Margo: We draw inspiration from lots of places. We always respect innovations from other brands in the sector. It is always motivating to see a new idea take shape. But while we may be inspired to re-look at a particular product category because of a toy another brand has brought out, we always want to find our own niche and be different because that is how we add value. A Hot Octopuss product has to be edgy, sleek and high-tech, so we often look outside the adult toy market. For example, in the past we have taken inspiration from cell phone technology (really!), from the music industry — speakers and amps — and from cosmetics and toiletries in terms of texture and design. One of our recent products, DiGiT, was inspired by jewelry and wanting to create something that would sit on your fingers like a custom ring. On one memorable occasion, my co-owner Adam and I spent an afternoon in a wool shop looking for the right color for a new couples’ toy!
Our marketing messages are inspired by our desire to be a fully inclusive brand that speaks to everyone, regardless of ability, gender, or sexuality. Our customers are extremely diverse, and many of them have experienced stigma in many areas of their lives, including their sex lives. It is our mission as a progressive company to create products and tell stories that tackle these stigmas; for example, that disabled people can’t have just as active sex lives as non-disabled people. This means that our products have to be ultra-accessible but also that our marketing messages are inclusive and bold. We recently ran a campaign in New York called “Show Stigma the Finger,” which invited people to “show the finger” to whatever stigma issues they faced in their lives. It was really successful, driving thousands of new visitors to our site and gaining a lot of coverage. This campaign wasn’t about sales for us; it was about supporting a movement that tackles stigma and helps everyone feel more confident and more sexy!
XBIZ: For those that don't know your backstory, tell us a little about your background prior to starting Hot Octopuss.
Margo: When I left university I was very lucky to land a job as a reporter at the Sunday Times, a well-known British broadsheet newspaper. I worked there for five years, eventually becoming a commissioning editor for comment and features. I also got to do bits of beauty journalism, which I really enjoyed. From there, I went to work at a political think tank, working in U.K. family, crime and education policy. I worked quite closely with two prime ministers — Tony Blair and Gordon Brown — and their governments, advising on family policy issues, and went on an international research trip with Gordon Brown’s director of policy to look at the best school systems in the world, visiting Finland and Canada among other places. I published several books during this time, including when I went to run another think tank called Demos. I also did several TV documentaries about social change and economics.
I left Demos when I was pregnant with my second son to move to a role at Which? — the U.K. consumer group — where I set up their consumer research and economics team. After three years there, I went back into the charity sector and became CEO of a national family and parenting charity. My last role before moving full time to Hot Octopuss was running a health charity that funded medical research into baby loss and infertility.
XBIZ: How did you eventually fall into the adult products space and open Hot Octopuss?
Margo: I set up Hot Octopuss with my business partner Adam Lewis, who is also one of my oldest friends. He came up with the idea for Pulse, our first-ever penis toy, when he was searching for a vibrator for personal use. He realized very quickly that nothing suitable existed. The market then was pretty exclusively dedicated to silicone vulvas and there were no tech-savvy penis toys at all. After researching this gap, he came across a medical device that used a technique called Penile Vibratory Stimulation (PVS) to enable men with spinal cord injuries to ejaculate for IVF purposes. Adam approached me with the idea to license this tech and put it into a sex toy while I was working at Demos, the think tank.
I knew Adam was onto something with his idea and I agreed to invest in the product and help him take it to market, and that is what we did. But for the first five years, Adam ran Hot Octopuss pretty much single-handedly. I was always there in the background but it was only in 2018 that I came on full-time. By this stage, I had three kids and was ready to leave the charity sector. Hot Octopuss had also grown to a size where it wasn’t feasible for Adam to manage it on his own and we had reached the stage that many SME businesses do, where we needed to make some big decisions if we wanted to grow. Both Adam and I felt that it was time for me to dedicate myself properly to Hot Octopuss so that we could really create the company we had envisaged.
XBIZ: Which industry figures deserve recognition for contributing to your career and life in the industry?
Margo: Our U.S. head of sales April Lampert, also of the “Shameless Sex” podcast, is my inspiration in the industry. She is an amazing woman both in terms of her work ethic and her expertise and commitment to the sector and issues. I feel I have learned so much from her and so much of our brand is informed by her open and honest approach to sex.
I also wanted to mention Aly Fixter, who works with us on brand and communications. Aly worked with Adam and me from the very beginning and is responsible for our early focus on inclusivity. Aly encouraged us and all HO staff to attend training and education days, to consult with trans and disabled customers and colleagues, and to work to better understand the role that a sex toy company can have in creating a more inclusive language and culture around sex, sexiness and sex toys. I am extremely grateful to Aly for this input and their ongoing work for us. Another close colleague is Girl on the Net. As well as running our Twitter, Sarah is on hand to provide writing support and incredible advice on everything from product development to helping us with our positioning on key issues in the sector. She is absolutely a thought-leader in the industry.
Adam Lewis is obviously my hero and best friend. Adam comes up with 99% of all our product ideas and is the in-house oracle on all matters.
Elsewhere in the sector, I adore all of our customers and colleagues. Brands such as WOW Tech, Lovehoney and Lelo are extremely impressive and a constant source of inspiration to me for different reasons.
XBIZ: Where do you foresee the future of the sex toy industry? What trends, product niches, and marketing messages do you believe will carry us into the future?
Margo: In terms of sex toy trends, teledildonics and smart sex toys are just beginning to take off, and there are plenty more exciting partnerships and innovations that will take this technology from ”early adopters” out to a wider consumer market. Especially with sex toys for penises, which have traditionally been more heavily stigmatized and so have developmentally lagged behind sex toys for vulva-owners. I think the market is getting much broader, and as a result toys that cater to different body types, including people with disabilities, older people, trans people, are becoming more popular, and marketing of toys is getting more inclusive as well.
Predicting the future of sex toy marketing is a bit of a double-edged sword at the moment, though. On one hand, you have some incredible progress in terms of the mainstream media (and consumers!) being more willing to talk about sex, so there are some interesting opportunities to discuss pleasure in outlets which would previously have been squeamish about it. On the other hand, platforms that people use daily, like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, are increasing their censorship of adult content. In the future, expect a lot more innovative campaigns from companies like us as we work to try and get our message across despite online censorship!
To cut a long story short, I think what will carry us into the future is open-mindedness, listening to a broad range of different customers, and thinking creatively when it comes to new technologies and new communication channels to ensure that sexual pleasure is accessible to everyone!
XBIZ: What's coming up next for you and the Hot Octopuss team this year?
Margo: There is a huge amount to be done at HO to bring the company to the next level. I want to see our product portfolio grow significantly over the next couple of years, to fully staff up in the areas we need to and to continue to boost the brand and everything we stand for. I can certainly see us doing more campaigns like Show Stigma the Finger and we won’t rest until all marketing for sex toys includes a wide range of diverse images and voices, not just those of the young and typically beautiful!
Each month, industry news media organization XBIZ spotlights the career accomplishments and outstanding contributions of Women in Adult. WIA profiles offer an intimate look at the professional lives of the industry's most influential female executives.
