IPPN

Published: 25 November 2008

Source : Irish Independent

Hugh Hefner may be charging into his Playboy parties, but the Playboy bunny is jumping off the shelves, writes Susan Daly

The Playboy empire is in trouble. Its stock has plummeted in the past year: it was trading at $3.62 a share this month, down from $12 a year ago. Reports are rife that the company's founder Hugh Hefner has started to charge for tickets to his previously free parties at Playboy Mansion.

Hef's personal life is in jeopardy too: his number one girlfriend Holly Madison has run off with a TV magician, closely followed by two of his other favourite Playpals.

And yet, the Playboy logo -- the fluffy white bunny -- has become one of the world's biggest brands.

The merchandising department of Playboy Enterprises is taking over as the great white hope for Hef's empire. The circulation of Playboy magazine might be in freefall, but the bunny logo has never been more popular.

The key to this new success is a very clever marketing strategy. The brand is being aimed at a whole new demographic: young women.

The most cursory trawl of Irish company websites shows a stunning array of goods and services aligning themselves to the Playboy brand.

There is the Playboy bunny birthday cake available from an Irish speciality cakes company; Playboy watches (on sale in the children's section of a small ads website); Playboy clothing and so on, and most are aimed at young women and girls.

A line of Playboy-branded stationery is stocked by the Eason's chain.

In its O'Connell Street headquarters, the line is on the shelves marked 'School Stationery', beside notebooks branded with cartoon characters and sports heroes.

Eason's say their Playboy range "forms a very small part of Eason's overall offering but has proven popular with customers", and in a statement to the Irish Independent described it as a "fashion stationery line".

The statement added: "The Eason O'Connell Street store carries just three items from the Playboy range, all of which are Playboy branded notebooks."

When asked repeatedly to provide a spokesperson who might explain why it was deemed appropriate for Playboy items to be on a shelf aimed at schoolchildren, Eason's declined to comment.

The Playboy Bunny Tour is one of the themed parties on offer from entertainers.ie.

Their publicity material says the night features a wet T-shirt competition that is "always as enjoyed by the girls as the boys".

Could this be true? Are young women buying into Playboy as a female-friendly brand?

That has been the experience of Boogiebus.ie who have a Playboy-themed party bus, complete with pink leather interior and logos a-go-go.

Their website bills the minibus as 'The Ultimate Ladies' Night Out'.

A spokesperson for Boogie Bus explained that the company added the bus to its fleet just six months ago, in response to the popularity of its Playboy Limo.

"It was built primarily with the female target audience in mind. About 90pc of the bookings are female with the other 10pc being mixed," said the spokesperson.

"It has proven to be very popular for hen parties, as well as girls' nights out, birthdays . . . we're already getting bookings for next year's debs' balls."

Lorna Donohue, an Irishwoman who was appointed Vice-President of Worldwide Retail Marketing and Sales at Playboy some years back, maintained in an interview two years ago that the company is "mostly run by women".

She had to persuade her mother that there was nothing tawdry about her job.

"When mum came to meet everyone she realised that what I do is like working for any other company. It is business," said Donohue.

The concept of the Playboy brand as a harmless piece of fun was reflected in the 12A status awarded to last month's new cinema release, The House Bunny.

It features a fictional Playboy Bunny called Shelley, who finds herself exiled from the Playboy Mansion and is forced to take refuge among a bunch of college misfits, who include a girl so terrified of sex she wears a metal chastity belt.

Shelley goes on to teach these girls that they too can be social successes by passing on her shopping and make-up tips. And of course, involves them in a charity car wash/wet T-shirt extravaganza.

The House Bunny -- which presents Hugh Hefner as a father figure to his 'girls' -- has so far taken in €446,575 at the Irish box office.

It's likely to appeal to the same demographic that is watching Playboy Mansion reality show, The Girls Next Door, which shows the 82-year-old Viagra-munching Hefner fooling around with his pneumatic-chested girlfriends.

The target audience for the show is teenage girls and twenty-something women.

Rose Tully, PRO of the National Parents' Council of Ireland (Post-Primary), says the presentation of such sexually loaded material to a young female audience puts huge pressure on girls and women.

"The danger is that people think that it is all harmless, but girls are expected to have all the answers when all they have is questions.

"I feel the age level of The House Bunny, for example, is very low.

"It might be 12s accompanied but that often means that an older sibling will bring them and not necessarily the parents, who might make a more informed decision about the morals that this movie presents."

Even Playboy magazine, the leg of the brand that is still surely aimed at adults, caused controversy by putting model Lily Cole on the cover of its French edition.

Cole, who has made her name as a supermodel in the girlish waif mode, is dressed in just a pair of white socks and is clutching a large white teddy bear.

Her hair is in two schoolgirlish bunches.

She looks sweetly sexy, innocent yet hot.

It's a disturbing mix, but it ties in with the Playboy representation of women that goes back to its foundation in the 1960s.

Hefner has said his Playboy empire was a form of rebellion against his strict Methodist upbringing.

In reality, his Playboy Bunnies are not icons of sexual freedom, but rather giggling servants in a patriarchal harem.

Holly Madison's recent quitting of her post as Hefner's 'Number One' girlfriend in his Playboy Mansion apparently wounded Hefner deeply, partly because it is normally Hef's prerogative to end the relationships with his girls and not the other way around.

The same goes for the Playboy Bunnies who laboured under reams of fussy regulations while working in Hef's clubs.

According to an early Bunny rulebook unearthed recently, Bunnies were allowed to "converse briefly with patrons, provided that conversation is limited to a polite exchange of pleasantries".

They were not allowed to eat or drink in front of guests and could be fired if they clocked up enough 'demerits' based on a hairstyle out of place or lipstick that was too pale. Bunnies were to be seen, not heard -- a far cry from the fun, sassy image young women think they portray when they don a pair of Bunny ears on a night out today.