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Sex please, we're British
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July 30, 1998: 2:10 p.m. ET
Ann Summers lingerie parties put a female-friendly face on UK erotic retail
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - As they say, sex sells, but in the case of Britain's chic Ann Summers retail outlets and mail order businesses, sex sells a lot, thanks in large part to the company's marketing breakthrough, the lingerie party.
Developed by Jacqueline Gold, Ann Summers' CEO, when she was only 19 years old, the party plan network -- the largest independent at-home sales organization in Britain -- offers lingerie instead of Tupperware, sex aids instead of cosmetics.
The party plan is Ann Summers' most profitable segment, making up 85 percent of the company's total 1997 revenues of $65 million. Every week, four thousand parties take place in Europe, drawing in two million women a year.
"The ladies can sit in the comfort of their own home and, you know, it's a fun environment. There's games and everything, and they can order the products, personal products that they may feel uncomfortable to sort of go into a store and buy," said organizer Jacqui Barham. "And we basically take the products to them."
Behind all the fun is a serious and lucrative business that is changing the face and attitude of the British lingerie market. In fact, by targeting women as consumers and not passive objects of desire, the creator of the party plan may be partially responsible for Britain's sexual revolution
"We certainly have contributed to changing people's attitudes to sex. Certainly women's attitudes," explained Gold. "Over the last 10 years, women in the 1990s -- certainly here in the UK -- are much more aware of their own sexuality. They're more comfortable about talking to their partners about what they want from a relationship. And I think they're all positive changes."
Ann Summers has seen a radical transformation over the last 20 years. In the early 1970s, the company was a small chain of sex shops when it was bought by Jacqueline's father, David, and uncle, Ralph. Jacqueline joined the business in 1979 at the tender age of 19.
"Actually, I had no intention of staying here. But I somehow got myself invited to a ... party, which is ladies' clothes, selling in the person's home. And the people there knew that I worked for Ann Summers," she said. "And they said, what a wonderful idea is to have a party plan selling sexy underwear for women. So that, you know, we want to be able to buy sexy underwear as well. We want to be able to buy sex aids. But we're too embarrassed to go into a sex shop."
Creating a female friendly environment was a revolutionary idea in the male-dominated sex industry, as Jacqueline discovered when she asked the all-male board of the Gold Group -- of which Ann Summers is a subsidiary -- for $70,000 to launch the party network.
"It took a lot of convincing to persuade the board, particularly. I remember comments like, you know, 'this isn't going to work,' " she remembered. " 'Women aren't even interested in sex,' which of course, made me even more determined to pursue the idea."
Within one year, the operation grew from eight sales organizers to more than 1,000. Today, Ann Summers runs a network of 7,000 self-employed women who earn 30 percent on every item sold.
"This basically tends to sort of double over time," said Barham. "We try every party to get another two ladies to put on parties, so the business is just growing and growing all the time."
The next step was to extend the idea to the retail and catalog business, reinventing the company as a lingerie boutique with an attitude. But it wasn't an easy transition.
"I did feel like a woman alone in the sex industry," said Gold. "And there were a lot of preconceived ideas. I had great difficulty in persuading newspapers to take ... adverts and hotels. I was running seminars at the time. So there were a lot of difficulties and it was constantly educating people that we were changing, and completely changing our image."
Over the next two decades, Ann Summers changed Britain's sex industry and became a household name. With franchises all over Europe, Ann Summers is now targeting Australia and the United States.
Ann Summers' collections are created by an all-women team which designs lingerie, bedroom wear, personal products, novelties and even a fashion label. According to Gold, 60 percent of the company's retail customers are women, 20 percent men, and 20 percent couples.
"Everybody loves sex. Most people enjoy sex," she noted. "And I think it's just creating the right atmosphere and that certainly is what Ann Summers has achieved." 
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Tupperware
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