Finally, something for those guys who say they read Playboy for the articles: a chance to prove it.
Playboy Enterprises Inc. launched a website today that it swears will be safe to browse while at work.
TheSmokingJacket.com will contain none of the nudity that makes Playboy.com NSFW. Instead, it’ll rely on humour to reach Playboy’s target audience, men 25 to 34, when they are most likely to be in front of a computer screen.
“A lot of our audience logs on (to Playboy.com) after work and we saw that we were missing a golden opportunity to reach guys when they’re online the most: when they’re sitting at their desk, not working, sending e-mails to their friends,” said Jimmy Jellinek, Playboy’s editorial director.
The site, named after one of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s favourite pieces of clothing (SilkPajamas.com was taken), won’t include the long interviews or in-depth articles found in Playboy.
Instead, it’s meant to be decidedly un-serious and “basically a juke box of cool,” said Jellinek.
Among the original content visitors to the site will see is a list of signs that show a man has given up trying to attract women. They include wearing Velcro sneakers and pants with elastic waistbands.
The site will dip into the Playboy archives with photographs like those from the 1983 Playmate Playoffs, in which bathing suit-clad women competed in games such as a tug-of-war. There will be links to the kinds of things people are already e-mailing their friends, from funny moments on television shows such as The Colbert Report and The Daily Show to a Korean Parliament brawl that’s been a big web hit recently.
“It’s all about social currency,” Jellinek said. “You want to be the first guy of your friends to send the funny joke, the crazy video… You can be the coolest guy among your friends if you’re the first person to circulate this information among them.”
“The ideal is to be… the go-to site for those who are bored at work,” said Matt Gibbs, the lead producer of the site.
The site will be updated continually in the hopes that men will return to it throughout the work day.
Playboy.com gets about six million unique visitors a month, and Jellinek said he will be pleased if TheSmokingJacket.com receives one million unique visitors a month.
