LET’s talk about sex. Christie Hefner, chief executive of Playboy Enterprises,
doesn’t even blanch at the suggestion.
“I don’t think there is anything wrong with sex. I think there is something
wrong with linking violence with sex, which a number of movies do, but I
don’t think adults having the chance to watch other adults in sexual
situations in their home is in the least bit negative.”
Then she takes another bite of her grilled-chicken sandwich. We are sitting in
the tea room in London’s swish Claridge’s hotel. Hefner, slim and elegant
and looking younger than her 54 years, has just flown in from Russia to open
a new Playboy shop on Oxford Street, the company’s first investment here for
30-odd years.
She is keen to broaden Playboy, best-known for the magazine founded by her
father, Hugh, into a lifestyle company, selling licensed fashion and
homewares to a new generation of consumers – women in particular. That shift
in strategy seems an odd mix for a company that also sells soft-core porn in
its magazine, and hardcore porn via cable, satellite and internet. The
people at the table next door have just stopped talking and started
listening.
Hefner shrugs her shoulders. So she has no qualms about how pornography can
exploit women?
“Sure I have qualms,” she says, gesturing round, “but I have the same qualms
about how the restaurant business exploits women, too. I am only responsible
for how the business we do treats employees, and I take that very seriously.”
She reaches for a napkin. Hefner, boss of Playboy for 19 years, has batted off
such questions for so long it’s second nature. Like her 81-year-old father,
she is an articulate defender of anyone’s right to look at whatever they
want, so long as nobody is exploited.
These are tricky subjects these days, but Chicago-based Playboy – which
floated as a public company in 1980 – pulls it off as well as any. Now it’s
capitalising on its perceived trendiness among 18 to 30-year-olds, less
averse to raunch culture.
So it does pay-TV, internet, shops and licensing, as well as the famous
magazine, and last year made a small $2.3m (£1m) profit on $331m revenue.
The year before it made a net loss, but that, says Hefner, is because it was
investing hard for the future.
She finishes her sandwich and pointedly ignores the bowl of pommes frites she
also ordered. Hefner, one of the first high-profile female chief executives
in corporate America, is renowned for her discipline and focus.
Yet she shows none of the prickliness of power. Greying hair held loose on her
shoulders, designer suit matching her shoes, her father’s brown eyes
flashing amusement, she is warmly eloquent on just about any subject you
throw at her.
She is the eldest child from Hef’s – even she calls him Hef – first marriage,
to Chicago teacher Millie Williams. Her parents divorced in 1959 when she
was six, and Hef became “like a favourite uncle, we saw him birthdays and
Christmas, but he didn’t look at report cards or know who your friends
were”.
His suggestion two decades later that she join his business – before starting
law school – was about rebuilding that relationship, she says. She never
left, worked her way up, and since then has proved that she’s a better chief
executive than her father, who never knew when to stop spending.
He handed over responsibility after suffering a stroke in the late 1980s, and
now lives in his famous silk pyjamas with three young blonde girlfriends at
the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. “He is chief creative officer now,” says
Hefner, with a smile.
No embarrassment about her dad’s lifestyle choices? She gives me a look. “If
it makes my father happy to be dating three women in their twenties and
thirties, and if I believe they care about him, and he cares about them,
then I’m happy for them.”
That lifestyle – envied by some – underpins Playboy’s move into upmarket,
licensed goods. The new shop in Oxford Street, its ninth in the world, is
owned by licensee Global Designer Brands and spread over three storeys. It
carries lingerie, gymwear, robes, glasses, tuxedos and dresses, all made
with Playboy’s rabbit logo designed in.
Playboy magazine and the company’s porn offerings are nowhere to be seen.
Instead, £50 thongs and cocktail shakers predominate. It’s strictly
Footballers’ Wives, without the rude bits. But financially, it works.
The global sales of Playboy-branded goods have now passed $800m – from which
Hefner’s organisation banks $33m. The operating profit on those royalties
matches that of Playboy’s media division. It is also now licensing venues
that combine entertainment, gambling and restaurants – a return to the clubs
it abandoned in the 1980s, albeit with less risk involved.
“These are two strong growth engines,” says Hefner. “We’d like to do a venue
here, but there seems to be a bit of uncertainty about the gaming regulation
in Britain. We’re going to wait and see.”
Hefner’s success with licensing comes after a patient “clean-up” of the
company’s previous portfolio. “I’m not joking, I inherited Playboy air
freshener and fuzzy dice,” laughs Hefner.
Yet if mainstream goods targeting women provide the growth, where does that
leave the magazine – run at a loss in recent years – and its pay-TV and
online offerings? Playboy bought hardcore porn company Spice TV in 1999, and
and Club Jenna in America last year. Strategically, it seems to be doing the
splits.
Hefner’s tone becomes steelier. “The adult companies were acquired in response
to demand from distribution channels,” she says.
As for the magazine, which sells 2.7m copies in America and is published under
licence in 22 countries worldwide, yet still runs at a loss: “That’s a
function of the publishing business. It outsells every other men’s magazine
in the world.”
And there is no gender split – its magazine and pay-TV channels are popular
with women, too. “It’s an acceptable sexiness that women are comfortable
with.”
Really? Most women I know find Playboy’s pneumatic, air-brushed ideal of
womanhood laughable. Really, she says.
“We have a blue-chip list of stockholders and we wouldn’t have that if people
didn’t have confidence in the strategies of the company and its potential.”
Well, maybe. In truth, Playboy seems to have flip-flopped in strategy, and
missed a trick in the 1990s when it should have expanded its magazine
offerings into the mainstream.
“We tried,” admits Hefner. “We bid for Automobile magazine, and for Wired, but
were outbid by [Condé Nast owner] Si Newhouse.” More recently, Playboy was
tipped as a bidder for Maxim magazine.
Not interested, says Hefner. “Print is not a robust business. Most magazines
are thinking the way we’ve been thinking for years – they should be brands
and content that live beyond their pages.”
So why not sell Playboy magazine to a larger publisher, and live from the
licensing income? Because the brand is entwined with the values portrayed by
the magazine, and you can’t slice off something so vital.
More importantly, as TV meshes with the internet, content providers like
Playboy foresee big profits from regaining control of the consumer
relationship. Until then, Hefner is cautiously adding three outlets a year
to the shop chain, and targeting more entertainment venues. Playboy’s
prospects, she insists, really are on the up.
Will she carry on for another two decades at the top? Hefner tilts her head.
“I don’t know – right now I don’t think I’m running out of energy or good
ideas.”
Yet no-one is going to knock her off the top. The Hefner family controls the
majority of the voting stock. Her brother is busy running his own company in
California.
The next line of Hefners – her teenage half-brothers – are too young.
And Hefner herself, married to former senator William Marowitz since 1995,
has no children. As for inviting in private equity, she shakes her head.
Is this what she expected to do with her life? Not at all, she says. She read
English and American literature at university and fancied a career in law or
journalism, even politics. Her mother used to take her canvassing and she
retains that fascination with power. She is a close backer of presidential
candidate Barack Obama. “We work out in the same gym,” she smiles.
Old friends say Hefner has always been good at networking. She inherited her
father’s competitiveness and persuasive charm – but with an added sense of
duty.
Roxanne Decyk, corporate affairs director at Royal Dutch Shell, puts it
simply: “The single thing that distinguishes Christie from other determined
business leaders is that she has a gift for relationships. She is
extraordinarily thoughtful.”
But wouldn’t Hefner love to prove herself outside Playboy? There’s no answer
to that. Later, though, Hefner does tell me she prefers playing blackjack to
roulette in casinos – she won in Moscow last week.
“What does that say about me? It says I play a game where the odds are on the
side of the player, if you know how to play it well.” She laughs and
wrinkles her nose.
I’ll settle for that.
CHRISTIE HEFNER’S WORKING DAY
THE Playboy Enterprises chief executive wakes at her duplex apartment in
Lincoln Park, Chicago, before 8am. Christie Hefner usually takes a taxi to
her office, stopping at Starbucks to buy a latte coffee on the way. She goes
into meetings after 9am. “I have two group presidents reporting to me and
three senior corporate staff. My management style involves a lot of
collaboration, hearing points of view. I don’t see proofs of Playboy
magazine, but read it after publication.” She has a salad for lunch and
later works until 6.30pm, then goes to the gym. She tries to fit in four
two-hour workouts each week. She travels two weeks a month.
VITAL STATISTICS
Born:November 8, 1952
Marital status:married, no children
School:New Trier West, Illinois
University:Brandeis, Massachusetts
First job:journalist
Salary package:$775,000 plus bonus
Home:Chicago
Car:black Audi S4 convertible
Favourite book:On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan
Favourite music:Tierney Sutton
Favourite film:The Lives of Others
Favourite gadget:Treo
Last holiday:Napa Valley
DOWNTIME
CHRISTIE HEFNER relaxes by cycling, skiing, scuba diving and playing tennis.
“I’m an aggressive singles player, from the baseline, I’m not strong at the
net.” She spends her money on travelling and presents. “I like giving gifts
to people I care about.”
She is involved in a number of charitable and political organisations, and
regularly goes to the cinema and theatre. But her favourite pastime is
cooking.
“About once a month my husband and I put together an interesting group of
people, and we talk about a range of things, and I cook for them. It’s a
dying art, and a nice thing to do.”
