Playboy Marketing Communication Program Team 5 Agnese Kublinska Dongqi Wang Jiayi Lv Ruibing Ji Zhongyuan Lian Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 1 Situation and SWOT Analyses .............................................................................................................................. 2 Situation Analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 2 SWOT Analysis ............................................................................................................................................ 5 Marketing Communications Strategy: The Fundamental Decisions ..................................................................... 6 Targeting ....................................................................................................................................................... 6 Positioning .................................................................................................................................................... 7 Objective setting ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Brand awareness reinforcement ............................................................................................................ 8 Brand engagement and interaction ........................................................................................................ 8 Integrated business (online stores, memberships) ................................................................................. 8 Budgeting for one year.................................................................................................................................. 9 Marketing Communications Implementation ..................................................................................................... 10 Determining the mixture of marketing communications tools.................................................................... 10 Selecting media and vehicles ...................................................................................................................... 10 Outdoor and Online Advertising ......................................................................................................... 10 Creating messages (creative brief, campaign slogan and visual) ................................................................ 14 Marketing Communications Program Evaluation ............................................................................................... 16 Appendix ............................................................................................................................................................. 19 Introduction Playboy is a brand with a history. This history has shaped its identity throughout decades. Playboy has been a lifestyle/ entertainment magazine since 1953 when its first issue came out featuring Marilyn Monroe on the cover. Playboy’s founder Hugh Hefner has been the editor in chief since then. The brand expanded in restaurants, reality TV, licensing- the rabbit logo appearing on clothing and other consumer goods. Over the years Playboy has been known for its sexual content. In our minds it is associated with the famous rabbit logo, entertainment and half naked women. The brand has gone through an interesting path and has experienced its own evolution. In 50s and 60s the journal had the aura of exclusivity and classiness. It was a magazine for a gentleman. But as the time went by and the brand grew Playboy got more commercialized and appealing to the mass market. Unfortunately this came with a sort of a cheapening of the brand. These days Playboy probably for many has caused some negative associations with objectifying women and poor values. The brand is facing some major changes these days and struggles to adapt to the new market conditions and changes in consumer behavior. In October 2015, Playboy announced that starting with their March 2016 issue, the magazine will no longer feature full frontal nudity. They kept their promise. This was the best possible move from Playboy simply because of the fact that their product was no longer relevant to customer needs and possibilities to choose the content and the source they get it from. In other words if Playboy once was attracting readers through its pictures, now consumers can simply go on internet and find whatever they want. As time has changed and one can easily access the type of content that Playboy has offered throughout the years- pictures of 1 exposed women, the brand has to come up with a new value to offer the young generation. The old Playboy readers are no longer relevant as they are as old as the brand itself. What should Playboy do? How to capture the hearts of male Millennials? The challenge is real. The brand has to reintroduce itself and capture a whole new consumer base. And it can only achieve that if it provides a value that the potential consumers can’t get elsewhere. There is a rapid move from paper magazines to digital content. The new Playboy doesn’t sell a magazine it sells a membership. It is easier to market to men showing them what they will get. Therefore our new marketing strategy is focused on providing value to young men from 18-30. We have planned to leverage all the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram that Playboy has recently created but haven’t taken a full advantage off. Our campaign features a spokesperson that embodies the “new Playboy gentleman’’. On top of that we are aiming to provide a whole new set of benefits which are included in the membership strategy and in the online store platform. We believe that combining the right set of benefits and communication strategy with potential consumers is possible to revive the brand and create a whole new Playboy concept. Playboy- the fun lifestyle coach to young men. Situation and SWOT Analyses Situation Analysis Playboy is famous for its liberality, and the general level of their article content is pretty high. In 1950s and 1960s the Playboy was known as a magazine for gentlemen and was known for certain classiness. But it changed throughout decades. These days most people will associate Playboy with simple girls, bleached blondes, old Hefner- kind of cheapness. Because of its huge 2 influence, Playboy and its bunny trademark have become one of the symbols of American culture. Our team is going to discuss Playboy magazine situation analysis by following three parts: (1). Competitive Brands: Magazine publishing companies face intense competition for readers, advertisers and retail shelf space. Magazines and Internet sites primarily aimed at men are Playboy magazine’s principal competitors. Playboy's major competitors in the adult magazine industry include Vivid Entertainment Group, and Penthouse Media Group, Inc. These companies' products such as GQ, Hustler, Penthouse, etc. are generally heavier on the "graphics" and lighter on the writing and other content that sets Playboy apart. http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Playboy_Enterprises_(PLA) (2). Purchase Customers: Customers who purchase Playboy magazine these days are mostly young men from 18 to 54 who live in the cities. As demographic statistic suggest Playboy magazine is popular amongst men from ages 18-54. So our goal after repositioning is to focus on the younger part of the demographic which is 18-30. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/business/havedemos.html (3). Environmental Factors: The main environmental change that affects sales of Playboy magazine is that consumers can get what they want including sexual content on the Internet easily and free. Also because the variety of that type of content is rich these days, people are desensitized to pictures with sexual content (and this is what Playboy used to attract its readers in the past.) Because of the declining trend in paper magazine industry, more aggressive competitors, and irreversible environmental changes, the circulation of Playboy magazine has decreased to 800,000 3 in 2015 from its peak number 5,600,000 in 1975. With decreasing circulation, the revenue of Playboy magazine is going down significantly as well, from $240 million in the 2009 to $135 million in the 2015(http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/11/playboy-magazine-by-the-numbers.html). Figure 1 indicates the declining circulation of Playboy magazine. Figure 2 shows the finance situation of Playboy compared to that of Playboy’s top competitors. Figure 1 Circulation of Playboy Magazine from 1975 to 2015 http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/11/playboy-magazine-by-the-numbers.html Figure 2 Income Statement of Playboy Compared to Playboy’s Top Competitors http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Playboy_Enterprises_(PLA)/Data/Key_Metrics Based on these charts, we could learn that the environment for companies such as Playboy and its competitors is really hard. All companies started up by pornographic paper magazines are facing tough time. Especially for Playboy, the financial situation is much worse. The revenue, the net income and the net margin are negative and lower than competitors. What’s more, the revenue growth is negative. It means that Playboy is losing its market. We find that although the revenue growth of Playboy is -10.5%, this number is just average but not low. So it proves that the whole