Celebrities on the Newsstand

[Peggy Wilkins]

>>>>> "Dan" == Dan Stiffler <calendar-girls@mindspring.com> writes:

    Dan> Geez, this is great.  So the best thing for PLAYBOY to do is
    Dan> stick a celebrity on the cover and look just like every other
    Dan> "fashion" magazine on the newsstand.  Frankly, I don't get
    Dan> this follow-the-masses mentality to which PLAYBOY now
    Dan> subscribes.  It's as if the best way to design a magazine
    Dan> cover is to trot off to the newsstand and see what everyone
    Dan> else is doing.  Then when your magazine looks like everyone
    Dan> else's you can compete for the "camouflage of the month"
    Dan> title.

I don't think this is what is going on.  My understanding is that
there are circulation numbers to back this up, both in the industry in
general and in PLAYBOY's experience in particular.  It's not so much
that everyone is copying each other as that they are doing the same
thing because that gets proven results in sales.  As much as we'd like
people's buying behavior to be influenced by good design or
sophisticated contents type, or by putting a stunning Playmate on the
cover, apparently such things do not sell magazines.  This would seem
to be a fact of today's world that has to be dealt with, one way or
another.

What I have always maintained, and still believe, is that high sales
and good design are not inherently incompatible.  Just because
celebrity X on the cover will sell a lot of copies, or will sell more
copies than celebrity Y, does not mean that the presentation on the
cover has to be boring, unattractive, or routine.  I see a lot of fine
celebrity covers out there.  As I have mentioned before, Vogue and
Harper's Bazaar consistently have excellent covers with good visual
impact.  They draw in the eye, have an air of sophistication, and make
(at least) me want to buy them so I can take them in at my leisure.
The inside layouts in these magazines are top rate, too.  They used to
feature house models on their covers in decades past, just like
PLAYBOY did.  The problem to me with PLAYBOY is that their covers have
become routine and tired for usually 10 out of 12 issues each year.
To me, improved cover design, whether with or without celebrities,
should be an important part of the new PLAYBOY.

One thing I would like to know is why PLAYBOY has been settling for
the formulaic covers of the past few years.  True, there have been a
few outstanding covers in this time frame, but they are unfortunately
very few and far between.

I love magazines, and to me the cover is one of the most important
things if not the most important thing.  A good cover can have a huge
impact on how a magazine is perceived.  It can mean it gets put on the
top of a pile, or pulled out more times to look at.  On newsstands, it
attracts notice and makes sales.  It is the first thing people see of
each issue, and leaves the first impression which can be a lasting
one.  How such an important feature as the cover can be given a
pedestrian treatment month after month, year after year, is a mystery
to me.

    Dan> To put this at its most simple: With a celebrity, the reader
    Dan> has already met the girl in the limelight and has a
    Dan> preconceived fantasy about her body: the nude pictorial
    Dan> offers a payoff, but only that.  With a playmate, the reader
    Dan> is meeting her for the first time with no preconceived
    Dan> fantasy.  Whatever fantasy develops is the product of the
    Dan> playmate's story and PLAYBOY's presentation of her.

    Dan> To not see this difference (i.e., to think a nude woman is a
    Dan> nude woman is a nude woman) is to not understand the singular
    Dan> power of PLAYBOY's playmates.  It's an error that some
    Dan> feminists continue to make.  However, if PLAYBOY continues
    Dan> its own obsession with celebrity pictorials, it will in fact
    Dan> obscure this important distinction because the magazine will
    Dan> become known for its celebrities, not its playmates.  And
    Dan> then the book will become nothing more than an adolescent
    Dan> fix.

I don't see a conflict between the different presentations of Playmate
and celebrity.  They are simply different presentations.  Remember
that the Playmate gets one very important thing that the celebrity
does not: the glossy, three-page foldout.  That foldout is iconic, and
I think it will continue to have an iconic place in the magazine even
if the cover is adorned by celebrities, and even if the photo style is
changed/updated.  It is very hard to ignore a huge, glossy,
beautifully printed, and (presumably) lovely photograph of a nude
woman.  I think it will maintain and continue to attract "center
stage".

Peggy Wilkins
mozart@lib.uchicago.edu