Checking out Playboy bunnies at work just became acceptable. Playboy Enterprises (PLA) just launched PG-13 website for men called TheSmokingJacket.com, billed as “a juke box of cool” by Playboy’s editorial director. There will be plenty of eye candy and guy-centric content — just not the explicit images that made Playboy off limits at the office.
There will most certainly be a buzz this week as cyberspace descends on the website. But the real question is whether the bunny brand can make a go of it without the nudity.
Playboy stock has seen quite a slump from its lofty perch of around $15 a share in 2001 to about $5 now — and that’s after shares were languishing at $4 a share for months before Hugh Hefner announced his bid to take Playboy private. The company has been plagued by trouble adapting to a new media landscape and finding a way to leverage its brand. Playboy didn’t want to get too trashy with the nudity but couldn’t tone down the eye candy without alienating its base. The result has been a steady bleed of red ink that has threatened to kill off the company altogether.
It may not be an exaggeration to say the future of the Playboy brand, then, rests on this site.
Here’s the strategy: Create a portal for men 25 to 34 years old, full of articles about guy fashion or cool music and populated with plenty of links to third-party content — such as funny clips from TV shows or viral videos. There will also be girls, of course, including archival Playboy photographs featuring bikini clad women engaged in a mud-soaked tug-of-war.
Unfortunately, Playboy hardly has the market cornered on content like that. The thing about the internet is that once content becomes popular — whether it be a YouTube video or the latest story about one of Tiger Woods’ mistresses — it appears all over the place. The challenge, then, is building TheSmokingJacket.com as a site that’s always ahead of the curve or a portal that provides added value through its unique articles.
Some men have been saying for years that they read playboy for the articles. Well it appears that the new safe-for-work website is the quickest way to find out if that was just a line.
As of this writing, Jeff Reeves did not own a position in Playboy.
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