Playboy Wants To Build a New Mansion In the Metaverse (cnbc.com) 40
Playboy has plans to reboot its brand in the digital world through NFTs, digital subscriptions and a new mansion in the metaverse. CNBC reports: The company has dropped thousands of Playboy NFTs featuring bunny avatars, launched a digital social platform called Centerfold and has plans to build a new Playboy Mansion in the metaverse. These plans are unfolding while an A&E documentary focuses on the company's unflattering past. "Secrets of Playboy" is a 10-part series making headlines by featuring former employees, playmates and past girlfriends of the company's founder, Hugh Hefner, alleging Playboy had a dark side. Even before the series' debuted in late January, company leadership posted an open letter to its website noting, "today's Playboy is not Hugh Hefner's Playboy."
The futuristic moves come almost five years after Hefner's death and two years since the last legacy print magazine hit the newsstands. Staging its digital reinvention for the next wave of internet innovation, which technologists call Web3, is the next big challenge. "The magazine was one product of the company. But it was really that rabbit head that's worth billions and billions of dollars and not replicable," Playboy CEO Ben Kohn told CNBC in a recent interview. While the brand drives billions in consumer spending worldwide, much of it through licensed products sold overseas, Kohn said that business model is broken and that the company needs to make changes.
The CEO's fixes rely heavily on that not-so-secret weapon: the world famous bowtie-wearing rabbit. [...] The company is focused on trying to leverage that "inherent value" in the digital world. For example, a Playboy SEC filing last year shows the company paid $12 million to purchase a Bombardier Global Express BD-700 so Kohn could unleash that priceless bunny logo across not just the sky, but also on the internet. The plane is an homage to the black-painted DC-9, known as the Big Bunny, flown by Hugh Hefner in the '70s. The Global Express, which started off white, was gut-renovated before re-emerging five month's later with a sleek all-black body emblazoned with bunny logos and the same tail number used on its predecessor that whisked Hefner, celebrities and an entourage of Playboy bunnies around the world...
The futuristic moves come almost five years after Hefner's death and two years since the last legacy print magazine hit the newsstands. Staging its digital reinvention for the next wave of internet innovation, which technologists call Web3, is the next big challenge. "The magazine was one product of the company. But it was really that rabbit head that's worth billions and billions of dollars and not replicable," Playboy CEO Ben Kohn told CNBC in a recent interview. While the brand drives billions in consumer spending worldwide, much of it through licensed products sold overseas, Kohn said that business model is broken and that the company needs to make changes.
The CEO's fixes rely heavily on that not-so-secret weapon: the world famous bowtie-wearing rabbit. [...] The company is focused on trying to leverage that "inherent value" in the digital world. For example, a Playboy SEC filing last year shows the company paid $12 million to purchase a Bombardier Global Express BD-700 so Kohn could unleash that priceless bunny logo across not just the sky, but also on the internet. The plane is an homage to the black-painted DC-9, known as the Big Bunny, flown by Hugh Hefner in the '70s. The Global Express, which started off white, was gut-renovated before re-emerging five month's later with a sleek all-black body emblazoned with bunny logos and the same tail number used on its predecessor that whisked Hefner, celebrities and an entourage of Playboy bunnies around the world...
Hold on (Score:3)
I assume this is now a completely generic word referring to "cyberspace" or "virtual reality", thanks to the media.
Re: (Score:3)
So, when you say metaverse, you're not talking about the facebook thing anymore, right?
After reading the article, when he says "Metaverse," it's just a vague marketing term without any concrete plan behind it.
Basically the guy interviewed in the article is saying they are going to take the Playboy Bunny logo, and use it wherever they can to make money.
Re: Hold on (Score:3)
Pretty much. It's like SEO for investor cash. Hit all the keywords. Next week: Playboy is all-in on NFTs.
Re: (Score:2)
So, when you say metaverse, you're not talking about the facebook thing anymore, right?
I assume this is now a completely generic word referring to "cyberspace" or "virtual reality", thanks to the media.
It always was a generic term referring to cyberspace/vr.
Facebook is attempting to corrupt the term into their own personal brand.
Man! (Score:2)
Just stay away from that sticky mess!
Re: (Score:2)
You keep using that word (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
I know it's only February, but I'm calling it. "Metaverse" is officially the most over-used word of 2022.
Metaverse? Inconceivable!
Re: (Score:1)
yea its getting a little tiring, most of the planet got tired of metaverse type stuff 10-15 years ago (though MMO's and Second Life) Then there's out of touch Zuk over here bashing it in your head like he is a congressman that just discovered E-Mail
Re: (Score:2)
crypto blockchain nft are all still miles ahead in the scam world shell game. But, meta is definitely making a strong showing - so you could be right in the end.
Leisuresuit Larry (Score:2)
Somehow this all seems familiar, eh Larry?
Re: (Score:2)
Most forced word.
Instead of letting it grow organically and people think the word is useful etc.. they just keep blasting the damn thing, hoping people will accept it instead of associate the thing with pure annoyance.
Obligatory (Score:2)
There is no metaverse (Score:5, Insightful)
Playboy is obsolete (Score:3)
As obsolete as the Sears catalog. A classic brand, from a bygone era; a brand that no longer produces any unique or useful product.
Re: (Score:1)
I doubt it was ever classic, it had its waves of pop culture but it never had staying power outside of its subscription base ... its up there with professional wrestling vs something like Disney
Re: (Score:3)
Playboy published stories by Kurt Vonnegut, Vladimir Nabakov, Norman Mailer, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and many others... not to mention classic interviews with Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Truman Capote, you name it. Name another mainstream magazine that was more important from a literary perspective. *Maybe* the New Yorker, back in the Harold Ross years, when they had authors like James Thurber and J. D. Salinger.
The "Playboy philosophy" is just as controversial, and just as relevant, as it was
Re: (Score:1)
you kind of made my point, that was one of the pop culture waves it rode on and surfed out, then it kind of pops back up in the 80's
Re: Playboy is obsolete (Score:2)
Playboy published stories
Really? So that line about "I read it for the articles" wasn't just b.s?
Playboy is still around? (Score:2)
I thought they missed the boat on the whole hardcore online porn thing and kind of faded into obscurity like most print media magazines. Granted, I never paid much attention to straight adult entertainment, but it seemed like cable TV cornered the market for straight guys who were into the softer stuff (which earned Cinemax the nickname "Skinnimax"), and later the internet came along and rule 34'd everything (if it exists, there is porn of it on the internet).
TM (Score:4, Insightful)
"I'm Hef, welcome to my party" (Score:2)
"I'm Hef, welcome to my party"
No, wait... (Score:4, Funny)
You mean _I_ can actually _have_ fake ownership of this fake tit?
Re: (Score:2)
You mean _I_ can actually _have_ fake ownership of this fake tit?
So, what you're saying is, this is just like the magazine?
NiftyTit (Score:2)
NFT: The T is for Tit. And they are definitely not fungible.
Re: NiftyTit (Score:2)
Tits could definitely put the fun back in fungible.
E-NFT (Score:2)
it's pronounced E-nuff-Titty
Dunno (Score:2)
How will they simulate the slight smell of pee from the real thing?
PLBY (Score:1)
Anyone old enough to remember Playboy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Don’t worry, they’ll find some way of working blockchain and NFTs into it, and that’s enough buzzwords to get “investors” salivating.
Playboy (Score:1)
Market-wise, Playboy once had something to offer. It used faux-sophistication to make soft porn acceptable. That, and you could hide it in the closet, under your old homework ...
It became a victim of its own success though. It made porn (or nudity, anyway) acceptable, and the culture moved on from Playboy, through R rated VCR tapes, to today's gigantic river of nudity and porn available from the internet. Why would someone need Playboy?
Re: (Score:2)
It made porn (or nudity, anyway) acceptable, and the culture moved on from Playboy, through R rated VCR tapes, to today's gigantic river of nudity and porn available from the internet. Why would someone need Playboy?
why do people buy Coca Cola or Pepsi when house brand cola is cheaper. name recognition. with a name brand you know what quality of a product you will get. where some no name distrubuter will get away with lesser quality because they don't have to worry about tarnishing there reputation because if they do they can just up and change names and start again with little loss where a name brand has to keep up quality or loose prestiege they have earned (see new coke).
In this case they are well know they having
Re: Playboy (Score:2)
Believe it or not, it wasn't just a joke -- for a while, anyway, Playboy really did have some good articles.
Porn on the internet? (Score:2)
What, they want to put porn on the internet now? Nah, that'll never take off.
NFTs for playboy bunnies in the metaverse (Score:2)
Actually does anyone under the age or 60 even know what playboy is?
Amputees? (Score:1)
The Meta avatars I saw in a demo didn't have anything below the waist.
Or was that just the first (dis)embodiment?