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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
Playboy Turns the Page, Again In its latest relaunch, Playboy finally wised up to a basic metric about itself. “We found a strikingly small percentage, about 36%, are regular readers of the magazine,” says John Lumpkin, divisional VP and associate publisher, Playboy Digital. “That fundamental understanding changes everything for us. We can’t take for granted that people read the magazine. We are reintroducing Playboy.com as that first point of contact and taken the magazine glasses off altogether.” In much of the initial coverage of the relaunch, critics noted the diminished presence of semi-nude Playmates, as the new Playboy.com clearly does try to make the space less threatening to a wider base of brand advertisers. Actually, we are not entirely sure this is always the case. While the “girls” are relegated mainly to a single sub-hub of the site, this morning’s carousel of main features includes “Playboy’s Kama Sutra,” the “Best Boobs Bracket” and video lessons for telling real from fake breasts. Come on! It’s still Playboy. And yet the strategy is a bit subtler than downplaying the brand’s nude roots. The main pieces of featured content, video/animation, games and nightlife all retarget the Playboy brand at the hot zones of Internet growth. The Play-Mation Nation section introduces humorous multimedia animations clearly aimed at the staggering growth of online video use. Lumpkin says the brand is embracing the sight and sound aesthetic of online more aggressively now. A greater emphasis on video games tries to hook into one the leading form of online entertainment—playing and talking about digital gaming. And the new Nightlife section brings Playboy into the local realm, a key area of Internet growth. Even as onliners use the Web as a local resource, Lumpkin argues that no major men’s brand has created a nightlife guide for nearby bars and restaurants. Like TheKnot.com and some other media companies, Playboy.com seems to be targeting local as one of the next big areas of growth for national brands. The new Playboy.com seems to be positioning itself against some of the Web endemics, male-oriented entertainment hubs like FunnyorDie.com and CollegeHumor.com. While both of those sites enjoy similar audience sizes to Playboy.com (and off of much less investment), Lumpkin says “our advantage over a FunnyorDie is brand equity. It is significantly stronger than those sites.” According to Compete site analytics figures Playboy provided to us, Playboy.com enjoys a per-session hang time of 10.2 minutes, compared to five to six minutes of hang time at nearest competitors MensHealth.com, gaming site IGN.com and AskMen.com. In its play for ad dollars, the site is removing clutter and playing up its strengths like time-spent metrics and new gaming emphases. Lumpkin says that ad sales for Q1 2009 are up 3% over Q1 2008. While entertainment and spirits are the leading advertising categories for the site, grooming and gaming are the growth areas. Lumpkin sees special promise in branded entertainment, in which Playboy helps sponsors create content. A recent webisodic series the publisher made with Bushmills called “Couch Crashers” has already netted 200,000 video views. Playboy.com struggles with the same pressures online as the brand does offline. How relevant is the Hef dynasty to the current generation of highly wired males with countless choices? The hegemony and market lock Playboy magazine once enjoyed with young men and their advertisers is long gone. And online a new group of brands now fragments that audience and their advertisers across even more men’s brands than a newsstand could carry. Strong, polished content remains king, but digital distribution is queen of the new domain. Getting Playboy more effectively into the content-swapping digital ecosystem may be as critical to rejuvenating the brand online as relaunching the site…again. If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com COMMENTS
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