JKR

“I read it for the articles” went the old joke, to which one might add “I read it for the art direction”. Playboy has a fine track record for design and the forthcoming November cover, celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Simpsons, proves that the brand is certainly not chasing the lowest common denominator of its readership.

But a more interesting collaboration recently saw the Playboy.com homepage being restyled to promote the latest season of Mad Men – it’s an obvious and fantastic fit of two brands – the TV show which recreates the rat pack ring-a-ding-ding styling of the early sixties with the magazine which enjoyed its heyday in that era. There was plenty of material to draw upon in vintage playmate photographs etc, but there was also a witty aspect to the content, such as in a fashion shoot featuring the cast (the ironic gag here being that the leering character portrayed is a closeted art director in the series). With so many co-branding exercises seeming a little arbitrary, this one feels like it must have been great fun to create, and that’s possibly why the site got 150,000 views during the two week period that the promotion ran.