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Christie Hefner

A Brand with
an Iconic Quality

Editors’ Note

Christie Hefner joined Playboy in 1975, was named President in 1982, and assumed her current position in 1988. She serves on numerous boards, has been lauded with a variety of awards for her humanitarian and philanthropic efforts, and was inducted into the Women’s Business Development Center Hall of Fame in 1991. A summa cum laude graduate of Brandeis University with a BA in English and American literature, she was named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World by Forbes magazine in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Company Brief

Playboy Enterprises (www.playboyenterprises.com) is an international multimedia entertainment company that publishes Playboy magazine, operates the Playboy and Spice television networks, distributes programming globally via DVD and a network of Web sites including Playboy.com, and licenses the Playboy trademark internationally for a range of consumer products and services.

Playboy has been a household name for decades. Looking to the future of the company, from where will growth originate?

We reorganized the company into two business groups, reflecting our feelings about where the growth opportunities are. We combined all the media businesses into one group to extend our content across new platforms, such as Sirius radio and mobile phones. Not surprisingly, technology is the growth driver there. Our goal is to more cohesively integrate our content with our strategy to grow our overall audience and ad sales, which, in the past six months, have grown by 6 and 13 percent, respectively.

Our licensing group is doing about $1 billion in retail around the world. In addition to our Playboy concept stores around the world and our Playboy casino club in Las Vegas, we’re building a Playboy Mansion venue in Macau. Decidedly, our mantra today is “high-tech, high-touch.” The high-tech part is our digital content, and the high-touch part is the brand experience offered by our licensing group. That’s how we’re trying to grow the company.

Many publishers are worried about the future of printed magazines. Are you optimistic for the future of that business?

There will be growth because of the international potential of Playboy magazine. We have 24 editions now, and every edition is unique with locally originated content. Localization has been the key to establishing great partnerships around the world and becoming, almost without exception, the best-selling men’s magazine in every country in which we publish. Our goal is to add about three new countries each year to increase our global footprint.

What makes the Playboy brand unique in a crowded marketplace?

There is definitely more competition or clutter in the marketplace, but no matter how much money I gave you, you couldn’t build brand equity like that enjoyed by Playboy today. It’s just too hard to get the mindshare now that we were able to get in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. We established a brand with an iconic quality. That said, there is, and always has been, competition. In the ’70s, the sexual revolution brought magazines like Hustler and Penthouse into the U.S. market, and some very smart people said those explicit competitors would put Playboy out of business. We didn’t believe that, because our value proposition was dependent not on pushing the envelope but rather on a romanticism and sexiness that attracts celebrities, the world’s best photographers, and great journalism. In the ’80s, we saw the launch of men’s lifestyle magazines like Men’s Health, and in the ’90s, there was an influx of “laddie books” like Maxim and FHM, designed to deliver frat boy humor. Again, people said, “That’s the future,” but Playboy has remained the best-selling men’s magazine in the U.S. and the world. It has stood the test of time, and there is something compelling in its origins as a magazine that speaks to the passions of young men and does so with high quality.

Who is Playboy’s target customer?

While the magazine was originally intended for men, we have found that couples watch Playboy TV programming, and we design consumer products for women. Women who came of age after the sexual revolution and the women’s movement have internalized both of those events to the following end: they want equality with men, but, at the same time, they want to feel sexy and feminine. These women see Playboy and the rabbit head logo as empowering symbols for women. So we have a dual audience. Of course, we have also expanded the company’s geographical market reach with international editions of the magazines, electronic media, television, and consumer products.

Does Playboy encourage diversity in the workplace?

Very much so. Research and the experience of every leader I know show that, when you have a diverse group of people addressing an opportunity, you’re going to get better results than if everyone has the same point of view. My father’s values are blind to gender and racial stereotypes. Even in the early ’70s, Playboy had women senior editors and managers, and today more than 40 percent of our executives are women.

One might think that, whether your last name is Hefner or not, leading a company like Playboy Enterprises would be challenging for a woman. Was that ever the case?

I certainly felt more isolated in the early days, but that was because there were so few women CEOs. When I was serving as Vice President, someone who didn’t know who I was thrust a stack of papers at me and asked me to make copies. I was taken aback, but politely told him I would find someone to help him. An hour later, our general counsel asked if I could meet with someone who’d come in from Washington for a meeting – of course, it was the man who asked me to make copies, and he was mortified. Today, nobody would presume a woman was an executive assistant. I was only 29 when I became President, and I think my last name evoked more curiosity about me than anything else in the outside world. I can say sincerely that, while people recognize I was given this opportunity because my father founded the company, I have been judged for what I have done with that opportunity, and that’s a fair way to be treated.

Interview by David Schner