The "Urbane Sophisticated Man"... and Woman?

[Steve Sloca]

I think we have hit upon one key issue which will define whether
Playboy survives and prospers or whether it goes the way of Life and
the Saturday Evening Post (two of the most popular and influential
magazines of the 20th Century which ceased publication around the time
Playboy became popular), namely "what is Playboy's target audience and
how does it reach it?"

I agree that, as conceived by Hefner in 1953 and continued for several
decades, Playboy was targeted to the "urbane sophisticated man" in the
20-45 year old age group.  That group, which included the millions of
college and pre-college age young men who aspired to become such a
man, was a huge audience in the 60's and 70's as the Baby Boomer
generation came of age; and Playboy captured its interests and tastes
perfectly.  But that generation is now over 50, more concerned with
retirement than with acquiring the latest fashions or gadgets; and it
has mostly outgrown the fantasies of its youth, in which finding a
"girl next door" like one of the Playmates played a large part.  Thus,
while Playboy retains a hard core of loyal Boomer subscribers, who
look at it with nostalgia and sometimes longing for their lost youth,
that demographic group is not growing and will not sustain the
magazine for another 50--or even 10-- years.  Thus, it must change to
reach out to a "new" audience of post-Boomer readers, readers who do
not share the same values and experiences that their fathers shared.

There is today, certainly, still a large audience of college-educated,
seemingly sophisticated males, who most certainly appreciate beautiful
women.  But this new generation of "urbane sophisticates" went to
colleges where "political correctness" ruled over the radical anti-
establishment attitudes that permeated the '60's college campuses.
This new generation of college graduates went to school with "girls
next door" who were not husband-hunting future homemakers, happily
hanging onto the arms of their admirers, but were instead competitive
professional women, who see themselves as the equal of any man.  Many
of these young women have bought into the feminist myth that posing
nude is demeaning to women and thus that men who ogle Playboy
centerfolds are somehow to be feared or mistrusted.  Thus, the new
"urbane sophisticated man" reads Maxim or FHM (which haven't been
targeted by the feminists or declared "non-PC") and gives forth the
"PC" response that he prefers looking at women in clothes or who are
only partially nude (but he probably secretly downloads porn when his
woman friends or companion are not present).  Playboy could reach this
audience by eliminating full nudity and copying the Maxim fomula of
sophomoric humor and "laddie" lechery, but this would be the end of
OFM as we know and love it.

Instead of this approach, I suggest that Playboy needs to get out in
front of the Sexual Revolution, Phase II (the phase in which women
become true partners and equal aggressors in sexual relationships),
just as it was in the '50's and '60's when the Phase I of the Sexual
Revolution first began. It needs to treat women, not as the object of
jokes and snide whispers like Maxim and its ilk portrays them, but as
equally urbane, sophisticated players in the sexual dance.  It should
start by remarketing its Playmates, making them the center of all its
brand- related enterprises.  Playmates should be picked not just for
their beauty (as augmented by surgery, make-up and artful
photography), but on their accomplishments as professionals, on their
personalities as spokespersons, and on their varied interests and
achievements as women "on the rise." The Playmate should be marketed
as a role model for all women, not just for bimbo types who want to
hang out with celebrities or to be a "star" in Hollywood.  Articles
and columns should be written from the woman's point of view, just as
frequently as they are from a male point of view.  Reader forums and
on-line activities should focus on the new feminist woman of today,
and on how an educated, sophisticated man should relate to such a
woman.  When the average college-educated woman of the '00's can pick
up a copy of Playboy, flip to the foldout, and tell her husband or
boyfriend that she would like to be like the current PM, then
Playboy's circulation may well double from today's circulation (and,
eventually, the stores which once carried Playboy will do so again).
But this will never happen when the centerfold is portrayed as a bimbo
who goes out with a 78 year old, wrinkled old man to gain her
position, or whose only career goal is to be in the movies.  And in
these days of feminine equality, men are not going to start reading
Playboy when their women friends condemn it.

Thus, the biggest mistake that Playboy has made, which has made it so
irrelevant to so much of the younger generation, is to fail to
perceive that women have changed--and not just in the amount of
plastic surgery they can undergo--and to change with that fundamental
change in our social structure.  Correcting that mistake is Playboy's
biggest opportunity, because while there are magazines like Maxim
which appeal to the simpering little boys ("lads") who lurk within the
male psyche of today, and magazines of all types targeted to women,
there is NO magazine on the market today which targets the "urbane,
sophisticated men and women" of the current 20- 45 year old generation
and which presents sexuality in its new form, as a partnership of
equals.


--Steve S.