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.

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Published: 24 November 2008

Source : Irish Independent (Letters)

In my remarks to the committee on Thursday, I clearly indicated that the leaders of some teacher union bodies were scaremongering.

I base that assertion on the rather emotive and hyperbolic language used by some teacher union leaders over the past number of weeks to describe the impact the savings measures would have on schools.

I want to make it clear that I consider our teachers hard-working and committed members of the public service.

The high quality of our education system is recognised internationally and that is based on the excellent calibre and hard work of many thousands of teachers and others working in education.

Over the past six months, since my appointment as minister for education and science, I have seen at first hand the valuable work they do day in day out to prepare our children for the future. I did not call teachers scaremongers -- rather some union leaders who claim to represent their interests.

In my remarks to the committee, I asked for the support and co-operation of teachers and their union leaders in implementing the decisions taken in Budget 2009 which were necessary in the unprecedented economic times in which we live.

I believe that, if we work together in solidarity and without recourse to hype or to rigid sectoral interests, we can get through this difficult time for our nation and return to sustainable economic growth.

BATT O'KEEFFE TD

MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

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Published: 24 November 2008

Source : Irish Examiner

20,000 people protest against education cuts

By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent
THE insistence of parents and teachers that the education budget cutbacks must be reversed was as strong in Cork at the weekend as it was when thousands protested outside the Dáil almost a month ago.


Despite Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe's repeated statements that he does not have the funding to avoid reducing teacher numbers and withdrawing numerous grants, around 20,000 people from around Munster took part in Saturday's protest organised by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO).



Marian Coveney was there with her son, Adam, who is in third class at Cahir Boys' National School in Co Tipperary, along with 31 other pupils. "It's my son's education at the end of the day that's being affected, Batt O'Keeffe would want to come into the school and see what we're talking about instead of saying it won't do any harm having bigger class sizes," she said.

Sheila Harrington, principal of Eyeries National School in west Cork's Beara peninsula, said the biggest effect for them will be the withdrawal of substitute cover for uncertified sick leave in January.

"There are four teachers but, if one of us is sick, their pupils just won't be educated that day. I'll just have to divide up that class among the other teachers, that's hardly satisfactory."

After the crowd took about an hour to march the circuit around the city centre to the Grand Parade, INTO president Declan Kelleher issued a message to Mr O'Keeffe that teachers are not scaremongering about the effects of the cutbacks: "The education of the children here today will be damaged if these cuts go ahead. The wrong choices have been made, children have been attacked and the rich have been let off in terms of making their contribution to the education system."

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland president Pat Hurley told the crowd there would be chaos in January when substitute cover is to be withdrawn for teachers on uncertified sick leave or absent on school business.

"They say if something isn't broken why fix it, but if something isn't broken, don't try breaking it. These cuts attack effective programmes such as transition year, they attack the holistic education we give young people and they attack our efforts to create inclusive schools," he said.

Teachers' Union of Ireland president Don Ryan said the most unsavoury aspect of the budget fiasco is that students from poorer families, Travellers and minority ethnic students have been singled out for "particularly brutal treatment" which will irreparably damage their prospects.

The protest was the third organised by the INTO in the past month and will be followed by another in Donegal next weekend and a national rally in Dublin on December 6.

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Published: 24 November 2008

Source : Irish Times

Olivia Kelleher

IN THE region of 15,000 teachers, parents and pupils marched down Patrick Street in Cork city over the weekend in protest at planned Government cutbacks in education.

At a noisy demonstration on Saturday they carried placards with the words "Blind as a Batt" and "Batman you are after robbing us".

They came from as far away as Wexford and called for a Government U-turn on plans to cut substitution cover for sick teachers and increases in the pupil/teacher ratio, among other issues.

Mary O'Sullivan from Barraduff in Killarney, Co Kerry, said she travelled to Cork for the protest in a bid to guarantee the future of her five-year-old son Joshua.

"Where we are in Barraduff the class size is just right and you can see it. There is a nice tidy number and what he has learned in a couple of months in school is unbelievable . . . Once one thing goes it is going to have a knock-on effect on everything because a teacher that now gives time to something outside their remit won't be able to even do what they are supposed to be doing.

She added there was no point in being vocal when "the battle is lost."

Meanwhile, Eileen Keady, a teacher at Cloghroe National School described the budget cuts as a "slap in the face" for parents, teachers and pupils.

"We are okay for this year but next year an appointment won't be made that should be made . . . So we are very upset that any changes are being made and that the Government has gone back on its promise to lower class size. I regard it as a slap in the face that they are going to increase class size rather than lower it," she said.

"We were going to have a teacher appointed to teach the foreign language children and now it won't go ahead. If you can't understand what is being said how can you learn?"

Mother-of-three Diane Kelly from Crosshaven, Co Cork, who is the chairwoman of Scoil Bhride Parents Association said she was worried that fundraising money would end up being used to pay for essentials rather than extras such as interactive white boards.

The demonstration was dominated by chants such as: "You say cutback, we say fightback!" and "Fianna Fáil out!" One teacher echoed a successful television advertising campaign with the chant: "School uniform €150, books €100; benefit of an education ; priceless!"

Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) general secretary John Carr said the Government was making children pay for the "recklessness of bankers and developers". However, Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe has insisted that the Government has taken tough decisions to help the economy on the road to recovery.

The march was one in a series of protests organised by the INTO, culminating in a national rally in Dublin on December 6th.

© 2008 The Irish Times

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