Mockery as a weapon

[Brian Sorgatz]

Dan Stiffler wrote:
>It can be fairly argued that the main reason for the Maxim lead is that it
>is on many more newsstands than PLAYBOY, even with the recent cut from
>Wal-Mart.  Just think about all the places you see Maxim and no PLAYBOY and
>multiply that nationally.  That's a lot of Maxim issues with no competition
>from PLAYBOY.  PLAYBOY loses at the newsstand not because it is an inferior
>magazine or because it doesn't have Mariah Carey on its cover, but because
>it is not there.

The best solution, although one of the most difficult to achieve, would be 
to get PLAYBOY onto more newsstands.  A frequent tactic of advertising is to 
portray the people who don't appreciate the product as dorks.  I wonder if 
an aggressive campaign of this kind launched by PLAYBOY could help here.  
Could PLAYBOY shame 7-11 and Wal-Mart into stocking the magazine?  Of 
course, it wouldn't be necessary to mention the store chains by name in the 
ads.  Instead, they could identify them by obvious hints.  I'm not in the 
advertising business, but I have to wonder if this could work.

Brian Sorgatz