????性，當(dāng)然是賣點(diǎn)，但前提是免費(fèi)。

????上周早些時(shí)候，《花花公子》表示將停止刊登全裸照，以便重塑這個(gè)衰落帝國的品牌。花花公子公司首席執(zhí)行官斯科特·佛蘭德斯說：“1953年休·海夫納推出《花花公子》雜志時(shí)的政治氛圍和性觀念目前幾乎已經(jīng)蕩然無存。”

????不過，這番調(diào)整和女權(quán)主義者的勝利基本上沒有關(guān)系，而完全是因?yàn)樽罱K認(rèn)識(shí)到這是一個(gè)數(shù)字世界以及維持一種過時(shí)經(jīng)營模式的成本。人們普遍認(rèn)為休·海夫納是性革命的奠基人。1953年《花花公子》在封面上刊登了瑪麗蓮·夢(mèng)露的裸照，這讓整個(gè)世界大為震驚。但讓海夫納成為先鋒人物的經(jīng)營模式確實(shí)已經(jīng)過時(shí)。埋葬了這本雜志的正是它親手創(chuàng)造的文化。

????對(duì)40歲以上的人來說，《花花公子》曾經(jīng)有一種近似于神秘而又禁忌的魅力。它令人渴望垂涎，卻不敢公開示人。如果運(yùn)氣好，偶爾能在父親床底下或者大孩子們隱秘?fù)?jù)點(diǎn)尋覓到它的蹤影。現(xiàn)在看來，這種情形甚至?xí)税l(fā)笑，因?yàn)槿缃裨诰W(wǎng)上免費(fèi)色情內(nèi)容處處可見，免費(fèi)制作這些內(nèi)容的“業(yè)余”公司也比比皆是。

????對(duì)《花花公子》來說，幸運(yùn)的一點(diǎn)是它一直都不是純粹的裸照刊物。盡管有個(gè)老笑話說男人“為了里面的文章才看《花花公子》”，但這實(shí)際上并非完全杜撰。為“正好”喜歡欣賞裸體女性的文藝男而創(chuàng)立也一直是這本雜志的賣點(diǎn)之一。一直以來，《花花公子》對(duì)爵士樂大師邁爾斯·戴維斯和史蒂夫·喬布斯等名人進(jìn)行了突破性采訪，并且不斷刊登著名作家的文章，比如當(dāng)代最有才華和思想的女作家瑪格麗特·阿特伍德、“垮掉的一代”代表人物杰克·凱魯亞克和20世紀(jì)偉大的記者諾曼·梅勒，這是它的一大未得到充分關(guān)注的成就。

????情勢(shì)所需，不得不變

????然而，美國的文化變遷完全出乎海夫納的預(yù)料。性并未真正找到銷路，對(duì)性取向和性別身份的接受及其流行則重新定義了文化常態(tài)。據(jù)福克斯新聞網(wǎng)報(bào)道，成人娛樂經(jīng)濟(jì)的崩潰不光影響到了《花花公子》，色情行業(yè)本身的成功正很大程度上依賴名人拍攝的色情錄像。

????在改變自身品牌形象的過程中，花花公子似乎已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)，過去五年中出現(xiàn)的那些顛覆性企業(yè)，比如Uber和AirBnB等，正是利用了那些過時(shí)公司的弱點(diǎn)并成功填補(bǔ)了市場(chǎng)空缺。花花公子也想做到這一點(diǎn)。

????該公司管理層似乎終于意識(shí)到，就連歷史悠久的公司也需要?jiǎng)?chuàng)新，否則就會(huì)落后于時(shí)代。大多數(shù)網(wǎng)站的最大流量來源都是Facebook、推特和Instagram這樣的社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)，，而且這些平臺(tái)都拒絕色情。去年夏天，《花花公子》雜志網(wǎng)站撤除了所有裸照。結(jié)果表明，這恰好成了一次非常成功的試驗(yàn)。《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》引述該公司管理人士的話說，撤掉裸照后，《花花公子》在線讀者的平均年齡從47歲降到了30歲，也就是所有公司都想爭取的八零后群體，該雜志網(wǎng)站的月瀏覽量也達(dá)到1600萬人次，是此前的四倍。

????重塑品牌能起作用嗎？

????盡管花花公子目前的品牌形象幾乎和婚前性行為一樣不上臺(tái)面，但這本實(shí)體雜志需要和自家網(wǎng)站實(shí)現(xiàn)內(nèi)容統(tǒng)一，并為這個(gè)品牌增添一些體面的色彩。沒人希望因?yàn)樵诘罔F上看《花花公子》而被視為變態(tài)。這種觀念能否得到扭轉(zhuǎn)仍有待觀察。

????改變經(jīng)營模式，完全集中于深度新聞報(bào)道和高檔次藝術(shù)照，也就意味著和《紐約客》以及《名利場(chǎng)》（本月的《名利場(chǎng)》刊登了孕媽卡戴珊“迷人而且藝術(shù)氣息濃厚”的裸照，因此備受關(guān)注并大獲好評(píng)）等知名品牌展開競爭，這對(duì)花花公子來說無異于一次賭博，其結(jié)果或是打動(dòng)進(jìn)而吸引廣告主和讀者重拾這本雜志，或是被奚落為“出賣自己”，而且與海夫納創(chuàng)立的精神和遺風(fēng)背道而馳。

????此外，接受《紐約郵報(bào)》采訪時(shí)，報(bào)刊發(fā)行專家約翰·哈林頓對(duì)花花公子轉(zhuǎn)型的評(píng)價(jià)是：“我覺得沃爾瑪怎么也不會(huì)賣《花花公子》。它也許已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)在了一些書店和加油站里，但我想它并不會(huì)進(jìn)入主要的超市流通領(lǐng)域。他們這樣做的效果可能太小，時(shí)間也可能太晚了。”

????一場(chǎng)豪賭

????改頭換面的《花花公子》能讓以往對(duì)其嗤之以鼻的讀者對(duì)它刮目相看嗎？比如女性讀者以及八零后和九零后？這是一場(chǎng)豪賭，但（在任何行業(yè)）過時(shí)企業(yè)創(chuàng)新都是生存的關(guān)鍵。然而，新《花花公子》的美妙之處則可能是它比自己所愿意承認(rèn)的更像原來的《花花公子》。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????作者尼爾·鮑威爾是馬克杯創(chuàng)意工作室Mugnacious聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人，也是一位獲獎(jiǎng)產(chǎn)品設(shè)計(jì)師和藝術(shù)家，其作品為史密森尼學(xué)會(huì)的庫珀-休伊特設(shè)計(jì)博物館永久收藏。

????譯者：Charlie

????校對(duì)：詹妮

????Sure, sex sells. As long as it’s free.

????Earlier this week, Playboy announced that it will do away with full nudity in an effort to rebrand its fallen empire. “The political and sexual climate of 1953, the year Hugh Hefner introduced Playboy to the world, bears almost no resemblance to today,” said Playboy Enterprises CEO Scott Flanders.

????The shift, however, has little to do with feminist wins and everything to do with finally understanding our digital world and the cost of an outdated business model. Hugh Hefner is widely considered to be the founding father of the sexual revolution – he shocked the world with a nude of cover of Marilyn Monroe in 1953 – but the business model that made Hefner a pioneer is just obsolete. The publication has been buried by the very culture it created.

????To those of us over the age of say, 40, Playboy once held an almost mystical, forbidden fascination. It was something to be coveted, hidden away, and with any luck, occasionally stumbled upon under your dad’s bed or in some older kid’s secluded hangout. This is almost laughable now, as we live in a world where porn is so widely available for free on the net and produced so widely for free by “amateur” companies.

????Fortunately for Playboy, it was never entirely about nudity. While the long-running joke is that men “read it for the articles” – that actually isn’t completely false. One of its selling points has been that the magazine was created for literate, cultured men who also happened to enjoy photos of nude ladies. An under-publicized and notable accomplishment of the magazine is that it has a surprising history of groundbreaking interviews with luminaries such as Miles Davis and Steve Jobs and has featured the work of famed writers including Margaret Atwood, Jack Kerouac and Norman Mailer.

????Change is necessary

????But, America has undergone a cultural shift that Hef could never have predicted ––sex doesn’t actually sell, and acceptance and prevalence of both sexual orientation and gender identity has redefined cultural norms. The economic collapse of the adult entertainment world hasn’t just affected Playboy; according to a report from Fox News, the porn industry in itself is heavily succeeding on the back of celebrity sex tapes.

????In changing Playboy’s brand identity, the company seems to understand that disruptive businesses that have emerged in the last five years — Uber, AirBnB and Seamless, to name a few – have exploited and successfully filled a void in outdated business weaknesses. And Playboy wants to do this too.

????It seems that Playboy execs finally realized that even legacy companies need to innovate or become irrelevant. The number one source of traffic to most websites is social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – platforms that forbid nudity. In what happened to be a very successful experiment, the magazine already phased out nudity on their website last summer, and the results speak for themselves. According to executives quoted by The New York Times, once they got rid of online nudity the average age of [Playboy’s] online reader dropped to age 30 – the coveted millennial demo – from age 47, and web traffic quadrupled from four million to 16 million monthly visitors.

????Will the rebranding work?

????Though Playboy is now thought to be about as scandalous as pre-marital sex, the magazine nonetheless needs to align with its web presence and at the same time, gain an air of respectability for the brand. No one wants to be seen as the “creep” reading Playboy on the subway. It remains to be seen whether or not that perception can be changed.

????Changing its business model to solely concentrate on in-depth journalism and artful, high-end photography – pitting itself against established brands like the The New Yorker and Vanity Fair (which just received a ton of great publicityand glowing articles for publishing “glamorous and artistic” nude photos of a pregnant Kourtney Kardashian in this month’s issue ) is a gamble, and can go one of two ways: by either impressing and subsequently luring advertisers and readers back into their pages or being ridiculed for “selling out” and going against the very ethos and legacy Hefner established.

????Additionally, in an interview with the New York Post, circulation expert John Harrington said this of the remodel: “I don’t think Walmart will ever carry it. There may be a few bookstores and gas stations that start carrying it, but I don’t see it going on sale in major supermarket chains anytime. It may be a case of too little, too late.”

????Big gamble

????Will Playboy 2.0 win over women, millennials and other demographics that have traditionally turned their nose up at the magazine? It’s a tremendous gamble, but innovating an outdated business model (in any industry) is crucial for survival. The beauty of the new Playboy 2.0 , though, is that it’s probably quite a bit more like the old Playboy than they’d like to admit.

????Neil Powell is the co-founder of Mugnacious; an award-winning product designer and a fine artist whose work is in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum.