Peggy's letter about the June cover

[Peggy Wilkins]

>>>>> "Donna" == Donna Tavoso <dtavoso@earthlink.net> writes:

    Donna> Not to be the sole point of disagreement, but just because
    Donna> something has always been a tradition doesn't mean it's the
    Donna> right decision.  Sometimes change is good, after all if you
    Donna> don't change you are history.

In the specific case of who gets the cover, PMOY or celebrity, I don't
think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer.  More generally, I
definitely think that change can be a very good thing: it is a
wonderful opportunity for growth and improvement; and also for finding
out who and what you really are and why.

I commend PLAYBOY for trying out new things.  What this means for us
and for them is that this is a period of uncertainty.  They probably
don't know any more than we do what will work best for them.

Why am I disappointed that the Playmate of the Year isn't on her
cover?  One reason I gave was that it broke from tradition.  From
Donna's comment above it becomes clear to me that this word tradition
doesn't really explain exactly what I mean.  I wasn't disappointed
merely because they departed from a tradition -- in fact, there are a
few traditions they have that I wouldn't mind if they went away never
to return.  The real point for me here was that this particular
tradition is meaningful to me -- I hold it in high value.  When it
wasn't observed this year, I felt that they had given up on a part of
what I thought PLAYBOY was.

I recently ran across this letter in Dear PLAYBOY (March 1980):

    I have always maintained that the single most important
    factor that sets your magazine apart from its competition
    is not your fine quality, your exquisite taste nor your
    unparalleled photography but, rather, above all else,
    your keen sense of continuity.  Your unique feature Playmates
    Forever! bears out that fact one more time.  While one may
    enjoy individual issues of PLAYBOY, he can fully appreciate
    its special quality only after having followed it for a
    number of years.           --L.J.David, South Bend, Indiana

This in fact is a point that I had made myself in this very forum when
I was trying to define the characteristics of PLAYBOY that impressed
me and made me into a loyal reader.  Quoting one of those points:

    Playmates are special; the centerfold image is special...
    Playmates give a very special sense of familiarity and continuity
    to the magazine for those who follow it regularly.

(to see the entire message, look here:
http://mozart.lib.uchicago.edu/pipermail/playboy50/2002-October/000006.html)

The Playmate of the Year is one of the ways that the specialness of
the Playmate is honored.  It is a very natural concept: everyone seems
to have a favorite Playmate, and an opinion about which one from a
year was "best".  The amount of heated discussion that is generated
every year about the PMOY is the proof of just how key a concept this
is.

I also think that part of the appeal of a Playmate of the Year is that
PLAYBOY has deliberately put a special effort into photographing each
year's winner in a special cover and pictorial -- I think their extra
efforts at putting together a classy, eye-catching set (or location if
outdoors), superior makeup and hair, and extra good photos really
shows in the end product.  This means that regular readers like me
have come to look forward to seeing an especially beautiful cover and
pictorial to go along with the Playmate of the Year title -- it's not
just another cover, or just another pictorial.  And this is how the
concept came to be so meaningful to me: they really made it pay off by
going to all that extra effort.

If people are actually looking forward to a particular cover, like I
was, then not getting it is a big disappointment.  My disappointment
isn't due to departure from a tradition, but from having a very
positive expectation, built up over decades, pulled out from under me.
And what's this about decades?  I knew after seeing my first Playmate
of the Year issue that it was a special concept, and one that I
loved.  All it took for me was one issue.

As Dan Stiffler has mentioned here before, going for extra sales via
celebrity covers is always going to be a hit-or-miss venture.  While I
can appreciate their desire to grab more newsstand sales -- and I want
this for them as much as they do -- I also highly value the long term
rewards that they have so successfully set in place in the past for
the returning reader.  I would hate to see them throw that value away
permanently.

What I hope is that a certain percentage of the extra readers who
picked up the Sarah Kozer issue will see something good in returning
to PLAYBOY and so be brought into the fold as permanent readers.
Maybe some of the changes they are making now that are evident in the
June issue (cover aside) will help that along.  But I am still hoping
that next June we will get the Playmate of the Year on the cover
again.

    Donna> I also think it was smart not to reveal who it was on the
    Donna> cover, after all, the goal of cover lines is to get
    Donna> newsstand buyers to buy the issue, so if you want to see
    Donna> who PMOY is, you have to get the issue.
  
This isn't a strong point in my view.  The Playmate of the Year is no
longer a secret: she was revealed to the press at a formal luncheon,
she had appearances on television programs such as Extra (which I saw)
and other news reports, and her identity is readily available on
playboy.com's main page and in dedicated PMOY web pages as well.  Her
entire pictorial is available to Cyber Club subscribers.  And of
course there's the usual problem: few people at newsstands can even
see the cover, because it is often the case that it is bagged and
obscured, or it is kept behind the counter and must be requested for
purchase.  In that sense, it doesn't much matter who is or isn't on
the cover.

So to summarize, I like that PLAYBOY is experimenting, and I hope they
keep doing so.  I hope that what they are experimenting with is not
considered by them to be set in stone.  If they can make these
changes, they can keep making changes until they find what they are
most comfortable with and what also will bring in the magazine
readers.  I hope they realize that their long term readers contribute
to their success and are as important to them as the new ones they
want to win.  And I hope they can cater to both audiences
successfully.  I have said before, and will say again, that I don't
think these audience segments are entirely incompatible.

I have always said that PLAYBOY is unique, and I would hate to see
them lose what has set them apart as truly special.

BTW, Brian, I will indeed post my letter about the June cover here
when it is written.

Peggy Wilkins
mozart@uchicago.edu