Promotion

From: Peggy Wilkins <mozart@lib.uchicago.edu>, 18 Apr 2003
Subject: TV commercials for PLAYBOY?

I remember seeing television ads for PLAYBOY subscriptions, and every last one of them struck me as both trite and sleazy. To me, the largest problem came down to the style of narration, where the tone of voice changed to "wink wink, nudge nudge" when they started talking about the beautiful women. The rest of these ads didn't strike me as all that impressive, either.

I think it's quite hard to make a magazine sound good on television; I have yet to see an approach that I really like, for any magazine, wheter PLAYBOY or Sports Illustrated or what have you. I think this is the reason that we don't see many magazine ads on television.

Again, the 50th anniversary offers the golden opportunity. Remember that advertising is a double-edged sword: you can have the best ads in the world and if the product doesn't deliver, people will be disappointed and will never believe the hype again. I think that an extra effort at good content should be aligned with an excellent ad campaign—they go hand in hand. Deliver the goods.

If I were spearheading a content redesign, as Mr. Kaminsky is, I would see that a good ad campaign rolled out along with the new product.


From: Gretchen Edgren <budsms@ix.netcom.com>, 18 Apr 2003 1
Subject: commercials

If PLAYBOY is going to try to win over readers who might believe the radical fem/right-wing Christian attacks on the magazine that have damaged circulation and (especially) advertising, the commercials will have to be very subtle and low-key. How about having writers/successful Playmates/artists/cartoonists talking about what the magazine means to them? How having Playboy around for 50 years has made a difference? The choice of media outlets would also be important, obviously.


Peggy Wilkins
Last modified: Sat Mar 27 19:43:08 CST 2004