I was finally able to browse a copy of Playboy Philippines last night, as one of my former officemates had one. Here’s my personal take.
*Please note that I only skimmed through the issue and did not read any of the articles.
Overall Feel
I only had time to scan a few pages, so most of the stuff I’ll be posting are just general comments. I haven’t read any of the articles, but these glaring design flaws and flow problems are enough to make you ask yourself — did I just pay P199 (yep, you read that right) for this magazine?
Cover
The cover itself reeks of blandness, that not even Priscilla could have done anything to save it. No special colors were used, so the title doesn’t seem to “scream” at the reader. Some missing elements include a more prominent Playboy bunny logo.
Cover Lines
I have a question — who decided to make “cars of the year” one of the main cover lines? Reality check, people are looking for the pictu… er… Palanca winners. Since they made “we have 4 or 5 Palanca writers” one of their unique selling points, they should have at least dedicated some real estate on the cover for those people’s names.
Image and Print Quality
Sorry to say, ALL of the images in the first issue of Playboy looked like they were shot with a point and shoot camera. Could it have something to do with the printing? No effort was put into “cleaning” the images. Since we’re dealing with the cover girl here, I expected a lot more oomph for this feature. Even if the same images were to be printed in a newspaper, it would still look rushed.
What I also noticed is the absence of production value. It’s like they asked Priscilla to just wear whatever she wanted and pose for the camera. I did not see anything indicating that they did a shoot in some remote location. Pardon the language, but kulang lang talaga sa libog.
Some other pertinent points:
- Styling leaves a lot to be desired. To the people behind Playboy Philippines — you actually put Priscilla in a one-piece bathing suit? Come on, wake up wake up!
- Her hair is a mess. Her makeup is a mess. The picture doesn’t really invoke any kind of come hither attitude. Her right hand looks a bit stiff.
- Is it just me, or there’s a little bit of flab there? I know everyone would want the images to be completely unretouched, but believe me, even the best of them needs some Photoshop magic. The freckles could have been removed too.
Layout
What layout? I’m not kidding, the page below exists in the magazine. It’s supposed to contain some funny “jokes” for their “slightly more mature” market.
One piece of advice, if you give the reader the impression that you’re churning out one empty page after another, you’re going to end up losing that reader. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that magazines may be at the short end of the need scale. What you have to realize is you have to give the reader his money’s worth. Better that you have 60 packed, quality pages, than a lot, but with seemingly empty pages. The page to the left looks like it was printed straight our of Microsoft Word.
General Flow and Localization
Just like any book, magazines also have a general structure. International titles have brand bibles that are based on years of historical data as well. One thing you have to remember though, is that while all these formulas are proven, the success of any local edition of any magazine depends largely on how its staff is able to localize the content. Everything has to be relevant to the existing market.
“We will be having 70% local, and 30% foreign content”
As I said in a previous post, I think that ratio is too big, given that the people behind Playboy are still learning. If the ratio above is indeed what they used, then how come their main “Cars of the Year” cover line doesn’t include any cars that are available locally? To a lot of people that may seem strange, but to me that’s just plain idiocy. You’ve got to give me something I won’t find on the Internet.
Some of the things you will find a lot of in the first issue are hella’ long articles. Why are they the kind that you wouldn’t want to read? Block layout is non-existent. This means that once you get to a specific page, there are no multiple entry points for the reader. Though articles are separated by paragraphs, no design elements were incorporated to emphasize these. You have no choice but to read through whole novels articles.
The general flow of the magazine itself is confusing. Rather than go into a short description of what pagination and page planning are, I think a good metaphor for these would have to be a roller coaster ride. You start off slow, build it up a little, go for the big drop, and coast your way back to the starting point. In this manner, the lack of magazine related experience clearly shows.
My Final Comments
First of all, I did not expect the magazine to be priced at P199. I guess they figured that since they are targeting a more mature demographic, this justifies the cost. However, if you think about it, Rogue and Manifesto are priced at P185. In terms of bang for your buck, I would honestly rather pick up one of the latter two (by far).
Search for “Playboy Philippines” and hundreds of news items will come up. Apparently, it’s such a big deal that a local edition of Hugh Hefner’s franchise is being released without any nudity. Is this a good thing? Morally, maybe. But everyone has to remember that the numbers have to go North or any of this won’t make any sense.
Let me put it this way — Bastos ang Pilipino. Even though ideally, we would want the articles to be the main seller, I think it’s safe to say that’s just not how it works. Filipino men will always buy a magazine because of the women primarily. The articles will keep them loyal.
You see an international title like Playboy and you’ll always have high expectations. If you see that the money you paid for gives you photos and layout that isn’t worthy of the brand name and your hard work, can you still say “Oh, but the articles are written by some of the country’s best writers”?
Every magazine should always be a feast for the senses. Sadly, this is not what the first issue of Playboy Philippines is.
P.S. When the EIC of Playboy Philippines said they were okay with showing a nipple, this is what he meant 
astig pre! sayo pala ito
napadaan ako kahapon sa blog mo dito hehehe
great review. i used to buy fhm, maxim and other men’s mag but i decided to drop them because of uality. they can never hold a candle compared to their foreign counterparts.i’m not hating at all.while i always found it interesting to read these mags because of the filipina babes,their other content leaves much to be desired. really dumbed down.
well said, sir!
I can only say that you don’t let boys do a man’s job, and without exception. Sadly, it is money down the drain both for the publisher and the readers. The challenge now for this team of supposedly “experienced” palanca awardees and its EIC is to come up with a better product the next time around, which anyone worth his salt should not have difficulty doing. Unfortunately the odds are that they will dish out more of the same……let’s wait and see!
hi! just wanted to share my 2 centavos: the magazine still has to prove itself worthy of THE name. we all know that Playboy got famous for its “tasteful” images of famous NAKED women. the intention is all good in featuring works of our home-grown literary geniuses but the magazine should have its fair share of the nekkid pics
i mean come on, it’s like offering cheese burger without the cheese. Playboy ceases to be Playboy if it cannot publish that special element. if they can’t do that, they should just get another name like: PABLING.
but you’re right, this might cause a big stir from our morality police. we are a liberal country pretending to be conservative. i’m waiting for the day when they do get one of the cojuangco sisters or barretto sisters to pose in their magazine. the bonus part would be the articles.
if that happens, they did this country a big service by taking us to that level of “maturity”.
So, in a nutshell we should all just avoid the first issue of Playboy Philippines like the plague. Gotcha!
Honestly speaking, this review is quite hilarious but also at the same time truthful. The brand “Playboy” evokes a lot of expectations and standards, and showing just “a nipple” is not one of them. “Full frontal nudity” comes to mind, as that is pretty obvious in the US Playboy mags, but to have that here in the Philippines? All I can say is that with all the blatant corruption going on in this country, the term “morally conservative country” doesn’t fit well.
This is the picture running through my mind right now….
“Yep, let’s make sure showing two nipples in a magazine doesn’t happen and steal billions of pesos instead.” says the “conservative” gov’t official.
Right…..
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Good day bro. Even though you have a summarized critisizism of the PP magz, i think you may have said all that needs to be critisized. The magz is indeed not at par compared to its foreign counterparts. I can say that the magz doesn’t deserved to be priced almost a couple of bucks.
I would rather read Hustler Magz(but unfortunately i haven’t got on1).
Is there anyone who can suggest where i could buy one? they say all man’s sexual needs can be seen on hustler magz….i want to have a copy of it.
When I saw the 1st issue of the Phil Playboy in the newstand, I immediately bought a copy because it’s PLAYBOY! But after scanning through the pages, I felt that I wasted my hard earned money. Your comments about the mag were true. When I was in the States I used to buy the US edition and too bad the local edition really came short and failed to satisfy my expectations. If I wanted to read about lifestyle, I should have bought a copy of “housewife magasine”.
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