A-listers and Explicitness

[Dan Stiffler]

On 7/18/03 7:45 PM, "Peggy Wilkins" <mozart@lib.uchicago.edu> wrote:

> Why not feature the A-listers right away?  Or maybe some up-and-coming
> potential A-listers?  I don't see why having a break would benefit
> PLAYBOY.  Remember that the evidence indicates that newsstand sales
> are directly correlated to celebrity covers.  We can't ignore that one
> of the goals they are after right now is to increase newsstand sales.

Well, if they could do this fine.  However, I don't think Cameron Diaz is
going to be too interested in doing any kind of pictorial (nude or not) for
a magazine that has stooped to the levels PLAYBOY has in recent years.
PLAYBOY has damaged its credibility by going after the girls at the corner
of Tabloid and Cable.

What I had in mind was a cleansing of the system and in the process a
rebuilding of the body: that is, drop celebrity pictorials until it has
become clear that only the A-listers will get full pictorial treatment in
PLAYBOY.  Meanwhile, rebuild the content.  Put those $500,000 checks that
have been going to hapless reality show losers to work bringing the best
journalists and writers to the contents page again.

I appreciate Peggy's point about newsstand sales but, as we all know, those
sales are currently under 20% of PLAYBOY's circulation.  If there is a brief
dip in sales because the latest C-lister is not on the cover (and I am not
convinced that would be the case if the cover were actually enticing again),
the dip would be more than compensated once the content merits newsstand
attention and once the A-listers return (knowing that they will be safe from
association with C-listers).

I would make an public announcement to the effect that PLAYBOY is not going
to continue down the ruinous road of a month-to-month search for just any
kind of celebrity pictorial.  That instead it will improve its content and
focus on the presentation of most beautiful girls next door, the playmates.
I don't think it would take long, but I just don't see the Cameron Diazes of
the world saying "oh, gee, Sarah was nude in the June PLAYBOY; when do I get
my turn?"

I might add that I don't think there will be 12 A-listers for each year.
This would mean that some issues of PLAYBOY might have no--perish the
thought!--celebrity pictorials.  But it would also mean that each celebrity
pictorial would have more value.  As that feature stands today, its currency
is about the same as an Iraqi dinar.

> I was thinking of the last time we had an extended discussion about
> celebrities in PLAYBOY -- it was over the June issue, and Sarah
> Kozer's PMOY-usurping cover.  I remember being told by circulation
> director Larry Djerf that the the PMOY cover issues are consistently
> the lowest selling issues, year after year.  It occurred to me in
> remembering this now that there may be one flaw in their
> interpretation of the facts here.  Note that the PMOY almost always
> (with rare exceptions) is announced in the June issue.  How do they
> know that the low sales aren't seasonally related?  My understanding
> is that newsstand sales always slow down in the warmer months.  I
> would be interested in seeing if they moved the PMOY issue a month or
> (better yet) two earlier, if the sales would improve.  An April issue
> PMOY shouldn't be impossible to realize,

Right on, Peggy!  I love this idea.  You are  right about the summer issues
being slow sellers because of the season, not because of the PMOY; my
newsstand dealer supports this observation.  (What were the final sales
figures for the Sarah issue, btw?  Significantly greater than Dalene's issue
a year earlier?  Enough to merit the $500,000 paycheck and the loss of good
will over the PMOY cover?  Just curious.  My dealer tells me that it was his
lowest selling issue ever, but that's just one marketplace.)  Moving the
PMOY issue--and one would hope with a PMOY cover!--to April or even March
makes a lot of sense to this long-time reader.  Such a move would dismiss
with any pretence of "reader's choice" by poll and it would also present the
PMOY in a more timely fashion.

But Peggy's main point--it's not the PMOY that dulls the sales; it's the
month of June--is, I believe, sufficient.

On 7/19/03 12:20 PM, "Steve Sloca" <gokings@comcast.net> wrote:

> Now I know Donna and others will say, "Oh they can't take that
> risk...advertisers won't go for it...we've got to get back on Wal-Mart
> shelves," etc.  But wasn't that what everyone said about Hef and
> Playboy in the '50's?  He took the risks then; and it paid off in a 7
> million circulation, huge advertising revenues and the Mansion.
> Playboy needs leadership which is willing to take those risks today.

With Steve's posts, I always find myself agreeing with about 90% of what he
writes (his analysis of our culture and feminism is on the mark, for
example), but with that other 10% we often veer off in opposite directions.
I have no problem with PEI offering explicit content--in the newsstand
specials (which are gloried "stroke books"), on the Internet, and in the
video lines.  In fact, I have long argued on the PML that PEI is hurt by its
schizophrenic attitude about pornography.  On a personal note, I bought one
of Teri Weigel's adult videos because I was damn sure interested in watching
a playmate get it on, hard-core style.

That said, I don't see how in the hell becoming even more explicit--as Steve
suggests, more European--is going to put PLAYBOY back on the coffee tables
of America.  Full frontal nudity took it off the coffee tables in the first
place and eventually took it off the drug and grocery store magazine racks.
There must be some kind of reverse psychology that I am missing in Steve's
proposal.

When I posted my ten suggestions for the improvement of PLAYBOY last April,
I ended with the suggestion that PLAYBOY drop its explicit nudity, returning
to the standards of the 60s for the flagship magazine.  As you can see, this
is 180 degrees opposite from Steve's suggestion of the magazine's becoming
even more explicit (this, when the news of Penthouse's demise is imminent).
While I was reluctant to make that suggestion in April (it was really the
third--and most radical--of three having to do with increased market
presence), since then I have given the suggestion even more thought and I am
increasingly convinced that it is the direction that PLAYBOY should take.

PLAYBOY could then tell its potential advertisers (those No Fucking Way
advertisers that Donna listed) that it will be returning to its 60s
standards of nudity--that is, no full frontal.  It could tell the
distributors the same thing.  I think it would be hard for advertisers and
distributors to argue that a copy of a 60s PLAYBOY has no place in their
plans (note that eBay allows the sale of 60s PLAYBOYs in the general
category; post-70s PLAYBOYs are in the adult category).

PLAYBOY could also tell its potential advertisers that instead of spending a
half a million dollars on reality show rejects it will be investing in
talented writers and the occasional A-list and superstar pictorial.

PLAYBOY's text content should make the arguments that Steve and Brian
Sorgatz have put forward in recent posts.  Spirited debate in text is
coffee-table material.  An explicit crotch shot is not.

For those who like explicit shots (and I count myself in that group...my
testosterone is apparently still pumping), there will be the
behind-the-counter special editions, the cyber club, and the video lines.  I
believe that this way PLAYBOY can cover the range of entertainment for men
and for, as Steve notes, the liberated woman.  Best of all, with more modest
pictorials (remember, PLAYBOY took this path when it first went after
national advertising in 1955) and with the best writers, PLAYBOY will once
again be a magazine that is respected.

Regards,

Dan Stiffler