This episode of 360View is the first part of a three part interview on traditional and interactive advertising with Catherine P. Taylor, Contributing Editor of ADWEEK Magazine and prolific blogger on ADFREAK.

Cathy brings over 20 years of her keen views on the state of advertising, advertising agencies and the trends in interactive marketing. I am particularly pleased to hear Cathy’s insights at this point in time because it appears that advertising is in one of the more exciting phases. The dominance of the 30 second TV spot is increasingly challenged; online media has hit its stride with the deeper penetration of broadband access; marketers are increasing their online budgets (although while 33% of media consumption of U.S. consumers is online, the medium gets only 5% of total ad spend) and we are seeing new approaches to old advertising models as new players like Google are moving to apply their advertising auction technology to the print and radio markets.

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The list of greatest marketers of Allllll Timeeeee (as Muhammad Ali would say) includes Mr. Ali, Mr. Jobs and, of course, Mr. Hefner.

This week’s Podcast is a bit of a paean to Hugh Hefner, the founder of the Playboy empire and the world’s hottest 80 year old man. I’ve brought back my serial entrepreneur friend Robert Hoffer (who has been studying the world of Playmates since he turned 13) to discuss Hef and his amazing dream machine Playboy. Just think, how many marketers, and please do not doubt Hef’s marketing genius, have created such culturally significant icons as:

Playboy Magazine (1953)

The Bunny Logo

Playmates

The Centerfold (1955)

The Playmate of the Year

Bunnies

The Playboy Club

The Playboy Jazz Festival

Playboy’s “Women Of..” (including Enron, Wal-Mart and McDonalds)

Playboy Enterprises

Playboy.com

The Playboy Mansion

The Playboy Plane

The Robe

The Bed

The Pipe

The Girlfriends

Yes, three girlfriends at 80 years old!

Another point. Playboy is one of the most revered Brands in high-growth China. Yes, the following is from a 2003 press release, but, you get the idea about the power of Playboy Brand.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ — A recently published

Special report on China in the prestigious “Far Eastern Economic

Review” (12/19/02) cites the Playboy brand as taking the lead among

top consumer marketers in the world’s most populous country.

The authoritative economics magazine conducted a survey among

upscale, urban consumers in China’s major cities and discovered that

more than half of all respondents had purchased Playboy-branded

products.

Furthermore, a comparison among best-selling international brands in

Those cities showed that Playboy ranked higher with consumers than

such other prominent marketers as Alfred Dunhill, Cartier, Louis Vuitton

and Christian Dior.

“Far Eastern Economic Review” wrote: “While Cartier and Christian Dior

Are dominant names in the designer-goods market in other countries in

Asia, they are being outpaced by American label Playboy.”

I don’t have more to say any more. Take a listen.

By the way, I have in fact read the Playboy articles! I swear.

This Podcast is 25 minutes long.

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