Weekend Read: Coffee Table Porn for the Next Generation of Playboys | Digital Media Wire

Weekend Read: Coffee Table Porn for the Next Generation of Playboys

Authored by Jay Baage on October 14, 2006 - 8:44am.

Adult entertainment magazines are something that people usually keep hidden away. Now publishers are trying to rebrand them into products that you can proudly display on your coffee table or on your computer desktop. Will it work? The publishers of Penthouse and Monkey think so. Now the question is, can Playboy respond to remain the king of men’s publishing, or is it too late?

Monkey is a weekly magazine that is to be launched by British Dennis Publishing, owners of popular men’s magazine Maxim. Monkey is going to be online only, sent by email to its subscribers on a weekly basis every Wednesday. Each 48-page issue will feature a cover-girl photo shoot and editorial covering cars, sport, humor, entertainment, gadgets, clothes and user-generated content aimed at 16 to 30-year-olds, according to Brand Republic.

A Fresh Approach Instead of a Flesh Approach

Dennis has already had 250,000 users sign up to receive the magazine, after promoting the launch via Maxim's website, maximmag.co.uk. Maxim will continue to promote it to a database of more than 900,000 male readers of its magazines and websites. James Carter, new product development director at Dennis, claimed Monkey's format offers a fresh approach for the sector. "The men's weeklies have focused too heavily on flesh to drive copy sales and have become editorially tired in a short space of time," he said to Brand Republic.

No More Poor Man’s Playboy
At the same time in the U.S., classic men’s magazine Penthouse is attempting to reinvent itself as an upscale publication along the lines of Maxim and Stuff. “We’re in the middle of a brand reinvention”, said publishers Diane Silberstein at a convention of the Association of National Advertisers on Orlando, Florida, according to Brandweek. Penthouse has been known for being a poor man’s Playboy; more graphic, generally more lowbrow and less classy. With the rise of Internet porn, the magazine’s circulation and revenue tanked along with both Hustler and Playboy.

“Playboy Has Not Been Successful In Attracting Young Males”

Penthouse finally went into bankruptcy in 2004 and was bought by the private equity group Marc Bell Capital Partner. The goal now is to make the magazine “coffee-table acceptable”, redesigning it to look more slick and modern, less raunchy and explicit. While it will still feature full nudity, it will showcase more stylish presentation of photos. “It does have a good shot because Playboy seems to be doing the same thing it’s always been doing, and it’s not been all that successful in attracting younger males”, says Mark Edmiston, managing director of magazine acquisition advisors AdMedia Partners to Brandweek.

Playboy Experiences Cable Interruptus
While Playboy’s lifestyle-image is a clear inspiration to the new Penthouse, Hugh Hefner’s empire is having its own share of problems. Advertising revenues for its flagship magazine were down 16% in the second quarter, compared to the same period a year earlier, and are expected to drop 17% in the third quarter, according to BusinessWeek. In the last year, the Chicago company's stock has tumbled 30%, to around $10 a share. But Playboy’s problems extend beyond slumping advertising sales for its flagship magazine.

Playboy has also experienced a slower-than-expected rollout of on-demand television and still suffers from high operating costs. Many consider the company’s expenses to be bloated overhead, including the Playboy Mansion, that, contrary to popular belief, is not owned by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, but by Playboy Enterprises. It is evident that something has to be done and earlier this month, Playboy announced the cancellation of nine of its adult pay-per-view networks, because of increased competition from corporate adult entertainment companies like New Frontier Media. Since the launch of its first network in 1998, New Frontier Media services have replaced Playboy services in more than 60 million network households, according to the company, and it’s The Erotic Network (TEN) are now available in nearly 126 million U.S. homes.

Playboy Partners with Lucrative Domain Sex.com
Playboy should not, however, be counted out in any way. It is now putting more resources into its Internet operations. One sign of what is to come is Playboy’s new partnership with Internet's most valuable, and volatile, domain name: Sex.com, owned by Escom LLC, a privately held Delaware company that also owns the highly publicized domain name’s registered trademark and website. As for sex.com, the site will now feature shows such as Playboy TV Jukebox, Club Jenna (yes, as in Jameson), Naughty Amateur Home Videos, and Spice VOD, according to the corresponding press release. The domain has been known to get over 25 million daily page views.

“After fielding partnership discussions and strategic opportunities from almost everyone interested in adult content, it became clear that we wanted to build Sex.com with Playboy, as they are unequivocally the premiere provider of entertainment programming for adults. With their broadband platform and range of offerings, we are excited about this partnership and the opportunity to provide premium content. And given Playboy's commitment to operating their business in a socially responsible manner, we could not think of a more trusted partner", said Jay Janarthanan, Escom’s Chief Technical Officer.

Playboy Goes Back to the Future

The increased competition in the adult entertainment industry and re-branding of older brands like Penthouse is also putting pressure on Playboy’s chairman and chief executive Christie Hefner to rejuvenate Playboy’s brand as something that young men feel attracted to and can identify themselves with. The question remains - will Hefner’s plans be sufficiently innovative? The recent opening of the exclusive Playboy Club casino in Las Vegas implies that sexual icons of the swinging 1960s, like bunnies, are back in style, along with croupiers and blackjack dealers. Nothing in this venture is really new. The club is basically a reinvention of the members-only establishments that Hugh Hefner began opening in 1960. That chain, which required special key access for gentlemanly lounging among scantily clad “bunnies”, closed its last club in 1991.

Christie Hefner remarked to BusinessWeek that she expects the club to reinvigorate the brand while boosting the bottom line: "We're bringing in a completely different business model since we're able to include gaming with food and beverage," she says. "It's no surprise that the most successful clubs have done just that."

Hef the Has-Been

Playboy is hoping its brand recognition will spur success, and hence, the strategy is to ensure that the original bunny ears symbol, which conjures Hef-style high living, also means something for the aspirational young-bachelor set. However, the problem is that times change and Hefner, excuse me for pointing out the obvious, is not exactly a young aspirational bachelor anymore. The success of his show The Girls Next Door on the cable channel E! has put Hef back on the map, but not as someone young men aspire to emulate. In my opinion, the show packages him as an amusingly interesting has-been, much like the cast of MTV’s The Surreal Life. The Playboy brand is at risk of dying a slow death, while being diluted, as it’s pulled in many different directions. I sense a generation-gap problem in Christie Hefner’s vision of the 21st Century Playboy being a licensing powerhouse. To the current generation of young adults, Playboy is no longer a must-read and its bunny-ears represent a symbol of their parents’ past.

The Same Name but Not the Same Place or Time
No longer appealing for its shock value, Playboy has come to rely on its retro appeal. Film director and producer Jan Marlyn Reesman, a former bunny in Miami, New York and Chicago, said in a recent interview with the LA Times that it was hard for her to imagine the club now with general sexual morale so much looser:

"I was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and it was a great time," Reesman said. "Our outfits were not so revealing compared to what people wear on the streets today, so I'm not sure what they're going to do. It will be the same name, but it won't be the same place."

A generational gap has opened up for a new field of players to come in and take the role as “socially acceptable porn” with an edge. Penthouse and Monkey are just two new entrants in this field of “coffee table porn”. Expect to see more from this genre in the near future.

Joakim Baage

Related Links:
www.playboyenterprises.com (Playboy Enterprises)
www.maximmag.co.uk (Maxim Magazine)
www.monkeymag.co.uk (Monkey Magazine)
www.noof.com (New Frontier Media)
Penthouse Softens Its Image (Brandweek)
Can Bunnies Get Playboy Hopping Again? (BusinessWeek)
Sex.com ends up with Playboy (SFGate)
Sex.com to Distribute Offerings From Playboy (Press Release)
Playboy Hopes It's Back Front and Center (LA Times)

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