Playboy Magazine
Playboy magazine was a men’s lifestyle magazine published in America to entertain and inform its target audience. The magazine was published by Hugh Hefner and his partners.
The magazine was first established in Chicago area in 1953 using a USD$1,000 loan from the founder’s mother.
The playboy magazine brought to the limelight node photos of various models who were popularly referred to as Playmates. This is one of the few magazines in the United States that created a big impact.
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Until today Playboy magazine remains one of the world’s well-known brands. It slowly transformed itself into Playboy Enterprises which also distributed in the United States but there are versions which are supplied in specific countries around the globe.
The magazine used to hire top novelists such as Margaret Atwood, Saul Bellow, Arthur C. Clarke and Ronald Dahl to write short stories on its pages.
It further displayed cartoons on entire pages and full color. World’s best cartoonists used playboy magazine as a platform to grow and advance their careers. On this list was Eldon Dedini, Jack Cole, Shel Silverstein and Rowland Wilson among others.
Playboy magazine features weekly interviews of popular people around the world. This ranged from economists, artists, conductors, film directors, architects, novelists, journalists, men of the cloth, playwrights, athletes, political leaders, and race car drivers.
Some historical background is in order at this point. Hugh Hefner (playboy magazine founder and proprietor) was a psychology graduate who had started working in Chicago and by spring 1953. He had graduated in 1949 from the University of Illinois. He started out his career by working for Esquire magazine.
Hugh Hefner started out by registering a company called HMH Publishing Corporation and raised at least USD $8,000 from various sources. Initially, he had planned to name the play boy magazine as “stag” but after finding out that another company was using that name he changed to Playboy Magazine.
The first issue was released on December 1953 and it was produced in the founder’s kitchen. Morilyn Monroe was the first to be featured on the cover page. This is what gave mileage to playboy magazine.
The first issue of playboy magazine sold like a hot cake. All issues were sold up in one week. In 1953 Ray Bradbury published the novel Fahrenheit 451 and Playboy Magazine serialized the book in its March – May 1954 issues.
In 1970s Playboy Magazine reached its optimum. Competition in the field started swelling. Oui and Penthouse were giving Playboy a stiff competition.
The era of pornographic videos further eroded the market share for Playboy magazine. The magazine targeted at attracting the 18-35 year olds through providing them with what they wanted to read.
In 1975, Christie Hefner (founder’s daughter) joined the business and became the CEO in 1988. On December 2008 she announced intentions to step down from that position.
The January 2004 Playboy magazine issue was used by the company to celebrate the 50th anniversary since it was founded. The celebrations were conducted in numerous cities such as New York, Moscow, Los Angeles (LA), Las Vegas among others.
A part from publishing magazines, Playboy Magazine also produces limited edition products for sale to clients such as cosmetics- cream and lipstick.
In all colleges and Universities around the United States, the magazine presides over numerous annual events such school parties. In one of the years, the magazine used parameters such as brains, sex, bikini and sports to develop its famous list. University of Miami was ranked the top party school in 2009.
Hugh Hefner lived and worked from his famous Playboy Mansion. In 2000, Playboy publishing company was valued at $1 billion.
