A Playboy site cleaned up for the office
Thesmokingjacket.com is now on computers near you, and Playboy Enterprises hopes it will be a handy distraction while laboring over those spreadsheets. (July 15, 2010) Credit: AP
So the office computer system filters out Playboy.com, now for the bored 25- to 34-year-old working guy, there is a cleaned up version -- theSmokingJacket.com. Well, cleaned up in the sense that the women are wearing -- or falling out of -- itsy-bitsy bikinis. Oh yeah, and there's humor.
Playboy Enterprises Inc. launched a website Tuesday that it swears will be safe to browse while at work, eliminating the need for men to throw themselves over their computer screen when the boss walks by. Now they can try to make the case that they're swimsuit shopping for women near and dear to them.
TheSmokingJacket.com will contain none of the nudity that makes Playboy.com - not suitable for work. Instead, the publishing giant says it'll rely on humor -- and swimsuits -- to reach Playboy's target audience, men 25 to 34 years old, 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 Playboy editorial director Jimmy Jellinek.
The site, named after one of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's favorite 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 cool, "basically a jukebox of cool," said Jellinek.
Among the original content visitors to the site will see is a how-to on getting, uh, some action with the women at at work and a list of signs that show a man has given up trying to attract women, including wearing Velcro sneakers and pants with elastic waistbands. Information that really inspires work productivity.
"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.
Playboy spokeswoman Theresa Hennessey said Playboy.com gets about 6 million unique visitors a month, and Jellinek said he will be pleased if TheSmokingJacket.com receives 1 million unique visitors a month.
Can the Gross National Product tolerate that kind of diversion?
