Playboy trys to pull off a NGE.

[Merusk]

Yep, end of an era. In an attempt to reinvigorate the brand and because you can find porn on your phone they've decided to go another direction.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/business/media/nudes-are-old-news-at-playboy.html?_r=0

Hell of a change, and I hope it works out for them. I'm thinking it will go over as well as a lead balloon and those 800k subscribers won't grow but will drop. Print media is dead, they'd have been better off reinvigorating the web and focusing on logo-branded goods.

Oh well, put a publisher in charge of a brand and they're going to come up with publishing solutions, not brand solutions.

[Ironwood]

So, in this analogy they are moving away from twitch ?

[Hutch]

Supposedly, they went non-nude on their website a few months back, and this led to a significant uptake in views.
I'm guessing that's because corporate firewall policies don't block them anymore.

[IainC]

There have actually been a few proper investigative journalism articles on the Playboy site in the last year or so. They've been trying to be Rolling Stone but sexy for a while now. I guess the switch in print policy is to make them more news-stand friendly (a lot of places won't stock porn).

[HaemishM]

So they are becoming what... FHM? I don't get it.

But then, once pr0n became free and easy to get on the Internet, paying for a print magazine that just showed nudity really lost its luster. While they have some good articles at times, it's not like I'm buying any print magazines anymore.

Kill the print magazine. It's just not relevant.

[WayAbvPar]

Random nudes were never that interesting after the Internet, but throwing a lot of money at a celebrity to get naked is still a worthwhile enterprise 

[HaemishM]

Why waste the money? iCloud doesn't cost anything. 

[Paelos]

If they want to rebrand it as a men's magazine without all the Dude-Bro nonsense I'd probably be interested. The normal Men's magazines now are written for the semi-literate at best.

[Merusk]

I think they're going to focus on the journalism side of things as that's always been a strong point. Just moving to FHM/ Dudebro pictorials but without the airbrushing work. At least they're claiming that they aren't going to retouch like they have been, we'll see.

Still, print media is dead. I'm amazed they didn't just kill it off rather than try to rebrand a print mag for a demographic that doesn't believe in print. As I said in my first post, throw a publisher at a problem and it'll be a printed solution.

The Playboy icon is one of the top 5 most-recognized symbols in not just US but International culture. They have all kinds of clothing, apparel and accessories out there, making people aware of that might work out better than trying to revive a dead horse. Even if they don't get into the manufacture and oversight, licensing is making them money now, make some more that way.

[Paelos]

Yeah if anything Playboy brand is most about lifestyle now than an actual print magazine. They should leverage the name into a full website presence with subscriber content and merchandising, in addition to travel and resort experiences.

[Chimpy]

That is actually a lot of what this is about, according to the article that I read.

[penfold]

My dad got Playboy throughout the 70s and 80s and I kinda grew up on it.

It always did have a habit of including excellent factual articles and short stories, including some work from world class authors. Norman Mailer, Kerouc, Heller, Dahl etc The mags only had 3-4 pictorials too. This is a good way to go, they have pedigree. Any pics in recent decades from Playboy (I guess 2000s onwards) were massively shopped and quite unsexy.

[Phildo]

You could actually read Playboy just for the articles and it would often be worth the cost of the purchase.  Though when I was a kid I used to love the comics more than anything.

[IainC]

So they are becoming what... FHM? I don't get it.

But then, once pr0n became free and easy to get on the Internet, paying for a print magazine that just showed nudity really lost its luster. While they have some good articles at times, it's not like I'm buying any print magazines anymore.

Kill the print magazine. It's just not relevant.

I think the point is that the print magazine is essentially a link to the brand's past and a thing that makes the rest of the stuff (that actually makes money) more relevant. If Playboy stopped publishing a print edition, then the logo and the brand just becomes a concept rather than anything more significant. The fact that there is still a Playboy magazine at all adds cachet to the licenced merch and the website, and the events, etc.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Yeah they still have to keep publishing to maintain the brand exposure. if they have decent writers they will do fine being a competitor with Details/GQ type magazines.

The brand/logo itself is one of the top 10 most identifiable in the world, they can probably make a lot of money leveraging that onto all sorts of products. Surprised they haven't entered a deal with someone like Diageo to put that on liquor bottles.

[Sir T]

There is a Playboy energy drink so that would not be much of a stretch.

[MahrinSkel]

There is a Playboy energy drink so that would not be much of a stretch.

If I were a pharmaceutical company with a Viagra competitor that wasn't getting traction....

--Dave

[Engels]

It just occurred to me: Playboy could be moneyhats again if they keep the nudes off their main mag, but then, through a paywall, you get to see the whole deal of their 'tastefully displayed' magazine models. They could call it Playboy+ or some bs. Or are they removing models altogether?

[Hutch]

That would only work if they could somehow prevent the rest of the internet from publishing tasteful nudes.

Spoiler alert: PlayboyPlus dot com already exists. I'm not privy to their financials, but if it was moneyhats, I wonder if they'd be making these moves.

[Ghambit]

Met-Art kicks playboy's ass anyways.

[shiznitz]

FWIW, Playboy went private in 2011 for $217 million.  The last available financials showed revenue of about $250 million and negative cash flow.

[Ginaz]

You could actually read Playboy just for the articles and it would often be worth the cost of the purchase.  Though when I was a kid I used to love the comics more than anything.

You were doing it wrong.  So very, very wrong.

[Phildo]

You just waited almost three weeks to tell me that my 14 year-old self was a weirdo.

[Merusk]

Be here November 23rd for the Compelling response!