MySpace or yours? Although it may seem like a cheesy pickup line, it is actually the tagline Playboy is using for its newest campaign - the search for the girls of MySpace. The company is hoping to tap into the viable college-aged community presented within the popular web community. And with membership on MySpace always growing, Playboy executives hope the campaign will be a good way to build familiarity with the Playboy brand, as well as cast new women into Playboy's publications.
Michael Sprouse is the senior vice president of marketing for Playboy Entertainment Group. He said reaching the college community is definitely one of Playboy's goals for entering the MySpace community.
"Absolutely one of the big goals for us in this is to reach out to the college-aged kids," Sprouse said. "We know that MySpace is a popular thing for a lot of college kids, and we definitely hope that college kids embrace our brand and embrace the fun things we're doing."
Although the campaign is bringing added attention to MySpace, Playboy is making it clear that the project is not in conjunction with MySpace.
Representatives from MySpace did not wish to comment publicly on Playboy's project, but released the following statement:
"Playboy is acting independently on this promotion. MySpace has absolutely no connection to it."
However, there is a connection to MySpace, as Playboy has said part of its viral marketing strategy with the promotion has been to purchase ads on the Web site for Playboy and Playboy's group within MySpace: Playboy Talent Scout.
The group, which has reached membership above 4,000, serves as Playboy's hub of activity on MySpace. It is where women can apply and submit photos to audition for "The Girls of MySpace." It is also where other visitors to the group's page can browse through submissions from applicants, and register for giveaways from Playboy.
Sprouse said promoting the brand of Playboy is one of the top priorities of the group on MySpace.
"We're trying to bring the fun, hip, cool aspects of our brand to the membership base within MySpace and the Internet," Sprouse said. "If we can do that in the form of casting and shooting pictorials then that's great. We have a lot of positive and powerful aspects of our brand that we hope to reach a lot of Internet and MySpace users with."
However, some feel the search for the girls of MySpace bring some negative attention to MySpace.
MySpace member and Ball State University senior Becky Metz said, "I think that it could potential be a little exploitative; it's extremely easy to lie about age online. I would hope that Playboy would make sure that any subjects featured in its [publications] were truly of consenting age, but I would have reservations."
Junior Angie Lawrence said she agrees that Playboy's attention could potentially have a negative effect on MySpace membership.
"I have a feeling it's going to make it more popular, but I'm not sure if that's the kind of attention that this site should be excited over," Lawrence said.
Playboy lists a photocopy of a valid ID as one of the requirements for submission, and said underage submissions will not be a problem.
Metz, however is still not sold on the idea.
"I see MySpace more as something like the Facebook; it's more of a way of networking and staying in touch with friends than a venue for exhibitionism," Metz said.
While Sprouse said it is still too early to give exact numbers, he said response had been good.
"We're pleased so far with the response - but it's early," Sprouse said, "Without saying too much, I would say simply so far so good. We've had a nice level of excitement, a nice number of submissions, and we'll have to see."
As with past projects Playboy has conducted similarly, for example "The Girls of Wal-Mart" or "The Girls of the Gap," Playboy is estimating it will take six to eight weeks from beginning to end of the process.
Although Sprouse said a DVD is a possibility for the medium the women will be displayed in, he said it will depend on the response Playboy's group gets.
He also said, Playboy is looking to possibly market the project into an ongoing experiment.
"We're looking at this opportunity as something that can be ongoing and not necessarily having an end to it," Sprouse said, "So, it's a little bit different because of the community aspect of it."
Overall Sprouse said this not just a search for the girls of MySpace, but also a major experiment in using the Internet for Playboy.
"We really wanted to use the Internet as the viral marketing tool to promote this," Sprouse said. "We really wanted to see what would happen if we went about it that way rather than doing a lot external publicity ... We wanted to use this as a test to see how many people we could reach through Internet marketing. It was really all about the Internet for us"
And if Playboy succeeds with its marketing experiment, the results could lead to a new wave of companies using the Internet in interesting ways to meet their intended markets.
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