Playboy has gone back to basics in the latest attempt to make over the ailing magazine, restoring nudity to its pages a year after banishing naked women in an effort to boost advertising revenue.
The latest bid for relevance comes as Cooper Hefner, the 25-year-old son of nonagenarian founder Hugh Hefner, takes the reigns as the magazine’s chief creative officer.
“I’ll be the first to admit that the way in which the magazine portrayed nudity was dated, but nudity was never the problem because nudity isn’t a problem,” the younger Hefner said in a statement.
“Today we’re taking our identity back and reclaiming who we are.”
Playboy scrapped nudes for the January/February 2016 issue, which featured Pamela Anderson on its cover. “The question everyone will likely be asking is, ‘Why?’” a statement in October said, announcing the change. “Playboy has been a friend to nudity, and nudity has been a friend to Playboy, for decades. The short answer is: times change.”
The publisher decided to return to business as usual after finding that while “no nudes” permitted greater ability to display the magazine on newsstands, it did not offset a fall in subscription sales.
“I said when they dropped the nude spreads it would be a big mistake,” said industry analyst Samir “Mr Magazine” Husni.
“Nudes were the brand, so if one day you remove them, then you technically kill the brand image. Playboy with no nudes was an oxymoron. So this is a step in the right direction.”
Using the marketing headline “Naked is normal”, Hefner called the return of naked women a “remarkably special moment personally and professionally”.
In an essay titled The Playboy Philosophy, Hefner insisted many had missed his father’s original intention – “to promote a healthy conversation about sex while also encouraging dialogue on social, philosophical and religious opinions”.
He claimed that “many misinterpreted that message or missed it entirely”. Under his new Playboy philosophy, the magazine would be “swinging back to tradition”.
It is reported that the new issue displays breasts and butts, but not full frontal nudity that had typified the publication over most of its 63-year existence.
The new issue would feature Scarlett Johansson, Van Jones and Run the Jewels, along with several nude playmates, including Scarlett Byrne, who writes on the importance of owning female sexuality and the double standards that still exist between women and men.
In addition to nudes, the re-imagined magazine will include old elements, including ribald “party jokes” and a “heritage” section of vintage spreads.
Husni believes the return of naked women may allow Playboy to reclaim some of its former self.
“As a brand will it ever go back to having a 7 million circulation? No it cannot. It needs innovation not renovation. With Hugh on the way out, and under the creative leadership of Cooper, it will have a better chance to succeed, and to introduce an new idea of what it could be.”
