Hugh Hefner On the Spot

What kind of man starts Playboy? A descendant of Puritan leaders who grew up fascinated with images of beauty, which he sought and savored everywhere, especially in the movies. Hefner, who created the long-running "What kind of man reads Playboy?" tagline, sat down with Adweek last month amid the hoopla surrounding the magazine's 50th anniversary. Now starring with several Playmates in a Carl's Jr. campaign—symbolizing the notion that "not every guy wants the same thing every night"—Hefner, 77, touched on sex in advertising, American mores and metrosexuals. Q. Has advertising moved forward or backward in its portrayal of sexuality?A. If one charts the history of advertising and print, I think the most explicit time in the last 100 years was probably in the late '60s, early '70s. Things got a little more conservative in the early '80s and are starting to move back again now. What is more interesting now is that there's also more controversy. You're dealing with not only religious views of sexuality, but you're also getting political correctness. But attitudes have always been very complicated in America. Schizophrenic attitudes on sexuality are as American as apple pie. The Puritans came here to escape religious persecution and then turned around and started persecuting people who didn't agree with them. And a lot of those conflicts were sexual in nature. That's what the stockade was for, the scarlet letter. Who's had the greatest influence on you?Two things. Family, which means my mother. And pop culture, but most especially movies. I've been fascinated all my life with the influence that pop culture has on us in general and certainly on me—and then the impact I have had on subsequent generations. What do you think your impact has been?Rather significant, from looking around. We do live, in a certain way, in a Playboy world, particularly in pop culture. What's the sexiest ad you ever saw?That's like asking, "What's the best sex you ever had?" One that's stayed with me is the shaving-cream ad "Take it off, take it all off."The Noxzema ad.Sex in an ad is not the key—the key is to establish a positive response that stays with you. It was a combination of the model and the musical background. How did Carl's Jr. approach you?They were looking for the youth market … an antiestablishment kind of thing. The fact that they would think of me in those terms was attractive, and we were in the process of further positioning Playboy against the laddie books. It seemed like a slam-dunk.How can you keep Playboy viable in an era of Internet porn and Maxim? The answer is the 50th-anniversary issue. We hold a unique place in the playing field. We were the first in the game and do it better than other people do. Quality counts. The flavor of the month comes and goes. There was a point when people were asking me that about Penthouse. I've never thought of the magazine as essentially a sex magazine, I've always thought of it as a lifestyle magazine that incorporated sex as a natural part of life.Give me three words to describe yourself.A romantic. A dreamer. Most of my success has been because of my ability to invent ideas. I'm really in the advertising and marketing business, not just in terms of the magazine but everything else I've done.You do understand branding.That rabbit is now one of the most popular brands in men's and women's clothing in China. There was a full-page photo in National Geographic about two years ago—I think it was in Africa, but it could have been an aborigine—of a guy with a big smile and a gold tooth and the rabbit on his shirt.What's your biggest fear?I'll wake up tomorrow, and it was all a dream.What's your favorite movie?Casablanca. Combination of everything: lost love, found love, friendship, patriotism.What do men like these days? There's been a lot of angst about young men not watching network TV, for example.A lot of them are watching cartoons on Comedy Central. Men are interested in the same things now that they were always interested in. There are now many more voices in the marketplace, coming from every medium and in every form. So the fact about the networks is not a surprise. When people comment that Playboy's circulation is not as high as it was in 1971, my reaction is, "How naive." We live in a different world. There was no videotape, no pay television, no Internet. Of course the audience has splintered. What do you think of the metrosexual trend? I remember when there was a big brouhaha because guys were starting to use cologne. Anything that makes a guy think about looking good, living life with a little style, trying to be attractive to the opposite sex rather than just hanging out and having a beer with the guys is progress. Part of the reason I started Playboy was that the men's magazines were all outdoor-adventure buddy books. The result of World War II. For me, life was not about that—it was about the romantic pursuit.So you don't think Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is indicative of anything in particular?[Laughs] No. I started this conversation talking about how schizophrenic we are about sex. Well, there's the popularity of that show on the one hand, and then there's the controversy and the backlash about that Massachusetts decision [to legalize gay marriage] on the other. That's America.

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Hugh Hefner On the Spot

Jack Feuer

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