www.palgrave-journals.com/dam

JOURNAL OF DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT    Vol. 2, 3/4 178–180  ©   2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1743-6540 $30.00178

 PAM: MANAGING ASSETS, 
MAXIMIZING PROFITABILITY  
Playboy has a corporate wide initiative to 
digitize an on-demand library of all its assets. 
Known as the Playboy Asset Management 
(PAM) system, the goal of this project is to 
maximize the asset profi tability of one of the 
world ’ s best-known brands across all media and 
markets. 

 INTRODUCTION  
With its rich history of content production, 
Playboy archives span 53 years of print 
publishing, 24 years of TV and movie 
making, 11 years of online publishing, 5 years 
of radio programming, and 3 years of 
publishing in the mobile space. Today, there 
are few media platforms where Playboy can 
not be found.  

 Playboy has always been in the forefront of 
emerging technologies launching one of the fi rst 
pay cable TV networks and later becoming one 
of the fi rst national magazines to have an online 
presence. Our continued search for new 
opportunities to leverage assets initiated its 
international mobile launch of still images and 
video in 2003. The legacy of these media is a 
library that includes millions of photos, as well 
as cartoons, artwork, video and a range of 
editorial features. 

 With every new technology, Playboy remains 
committed to providing the entertainment 
people have come to expect from one of the 
most recognized brands in the world. New 
technologies create questions around content 
selection, availability, formats, size, delivery 
mechanisms, etc. Digital asset management 
(DAM) is a central part of how we answer these 
questions and bring content to market. 

 DAM has been happening in informal ways 
for decades with everything from departmental 
access-databases to simple excel-spreadsheets. 
The role of the PAM system is to build on 
these informal processes and to streamline them 
to allow our content creative teams to remain 
technologically agnostic in a multi-platform world. 

 Understanding the role of PAM within the 
existing operational infra-structure required the 
development of strategies to incorporate new 
workfl ows and business rules into the legacy 
systems. The PAM tag line:  “ Managing Assets, 
Maximizing Profi tability ”  was created to inspire 
corporate wide thinking about how to simplify 
the reuse of assets in ways that made the best 
use of the resources at hand. The challenge for 
PAM is two-fold: to mine existing archives and 
to leverage our content production to keep pace 
with changing times and technologies while not 
slowing down the creation of any end product. 
PAM is a central component of integrated 
systems including Rights and Content 

        Playboy ’ s digital journey: Extending 
the power of the brand    
  Michael       Hires           
 with over a decade of media experience, directs Playboy ’ s corporate-wide initiative to digitize and catalogue an on-demand library 
of all its assets. Known as the Playboy Asset Management (PAM) system, the goal of this project is to maximize the asset 
profi tability of one of the world ’ s best-known brands across all media and markets.   Hires began his career at Playboy in 1997 
and has since served in a variety of roles. Prior to his leadership role with PAM he served as the principal account manager for 
Playboy ’ s online and wireless licensees.         

    Keywords:      DAM   ,    integrated system   ,    repurposing assets   ,    archives   ,    electronic workfl ow   

  Abstract     Playboy has launched a corporate wide digital asset management (DAM) 
solution to leverage assets across media platforms. As that DAM solution gets rolled 
out across business units the ultimate goal is to have a single repository tied to rights 
and content management, streamlining the production of new branded content 
distribution points that are scalable allowing for optimal revenue growth.  
   Journal of Digital Asset Management  (2006)  2,  178 – 180.  doi: 10.1057/palgrave.dam.3650030         

    Michael Hires  
    Director,  
 Digital Asset Management 
and Distribution,  
 Playboy Enterprises Inc.  
 Tel: (312) 373-2812 
 E-mail: 
 mhires@playboy.com   



Playboy’s digital journey

©   2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1743-6540 $30.00 Vol. 2, 3/4 178–180  JOURNAL OF DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT 179

Management. They have been designed to speed 
product to market with the fl exibility of adding 
new end platforms as they become available.  

 The PAM system is at the core of who we are 
and what we do from a content production 
perspective. It is intertwined and enmeshed in 
every business production process in every 
division. It enables us to quickly leverage new 
business opportunities and distribution channels of 
our content as they arise. 
 Mark Laudenslager, Chief Information Offi cer, 
Playboy Enterprises  

 STILL IMAGE ASSETS 
 The life of our still image assets begins with the 
magazine. Our photo editors and art directors 
conceptualize the ideas and settings for each 
pictorial situation whether a stand-alone 
pictorial or as images to illustrate an article. 
Utilizing a blend of staff and free lance 
photography talent, the images are executed to 
extremely high-quality standards in terms of 
both content and technical quality. 

 So what happens to a set of images from a 
photo shoot over the course of its lifetime? For 
a typical pictorial, only 10 – 15 of hundreds, 
sometimes thousands of images taken in the 
course of a photo shoot will be published in the 
magazine. Selecting the best images is a process 
that Playboy photo editors have honed into an 
art form. Identifying the images that best refl ect 
the purpose and vision of the pictorial or article 
being illustrated is not an easy task. The 
challenge of viewing hundreds of fi lm images 
has only been compounded with the 
introduction of digital photography.  

 Advances in the quality of digital photography 
have enabled  Playboy  to contemplate the transition 
from fi lm to digital. However, having a system to 
edit and archive large numbers of digital images is 
an absolutely necessary part of the process. And it 
has to be a system that respects the quality criteria 
that the magazine has set for itself over the years. 
 Gary Cole, Photography Director,  Playboy  Magazine  

 Once selected, the images are turned over to 
Playboy ’ s Art Department where they are sized 
and paced for optimum visual effect. The 
approval process travels through the art director 
and editorial director of the magazine and, 

fi nally, to Editor-in-Chief, Hugh Hefner. 
Invariably, changes are requested, requiring that 
more images be identifi ed from the overall edit. 

 For some companies, the 10 – 15 images that 
make the print edition could be the end of the 
story, leaving the remaining hundreds of pictures 
sitting in a photo library, never to see the light 
of day again. Among Playboy ’ s unique qualities 
is our belief that every asset has value and no 
asset featuring the brand at Playboy is ever truly 
retired. 

 Playboy has always looked for ways of 
extending the power of the brand of Playboy 
beyond the core business of our domestic 
magazine. Our licensed international editions 
gave us one of the earliest tests of repurposing 
images and whole layouts came with the launch 
of the fi rst two non-English editions,  Playboy  
Germany and  Playboy  Japan. The process worked 
 —  today there are 20 editions of  Playboy  around 
the world including, Brazil, France, Mexico, the 
Netherlands, Poland and Russia. Over the years 
the optimal balance of 80 per cent   local content 
 —  fi lled in by 20 per cent   US created content, 
or a combination of content from other foreign 
editions  —  has created and extended the global 
presence of Playboy while adding another source 
of original material that can be leveraged across 
other editions or in new technologies.  

  Playboy  works around the world because its icons 
and its core editorial materials and values are so 
strong that the editors of each edition have 
enormous fl exibility in creating magazines that 
touch their readers and work for their advertisers. 
The tensile strength of the editorial ideas and 
standards of quality that come from US  Playboy  
are the building blocks that work everywhere. 
 David Walker, SVP-Editorial Director-International 
Publishing  

 In the domestic space, the extension of the 
Playboy brand appeared with the introduction of 
Playboy ’ s Newsstand Specials. Using out-takes 
from photo shoots, Playboy created a series of 
magazines extending  Playboy ’ s  shelf space on the 
newsstand and providing a new revenue stream. 
As the popularity of these issues  —  now called 
Special Editions  —  grew, so did budgets for 
original photography and a third source of 
original material was created. The Special 
Editions team publishes 25 issues every year. 



Hires

JOURNAL OF DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT    Vol. 2, 3/4 178–180  ©   2006 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1743-6540 $30.00180

Every issue is based on themes such as College 
Girls, Girls Next Door or Natural Beauties.  

 Digital Asset Management will enable us to build 
on the thematic pictorials our readers have come 
to enjoy and streamline our ability to identify and 
build on new themes as they arise. 
 Jeff Cohen, Publisher and Executive Editor-
Playboy Press  

 As new technologies emerged, the life of the 
Playboy asset has been extended even further. 
1994 marked the beginning of Playboy ’ s 
presence on the internet, and in 2003, onto 
wireless platforms. Over the course of the last 
11 years the same growth pattern repeated: 
begin with leveraging existing assets and, as 
readership and revenue grow, initiate the process 
of creating material specifi c to the new space. 
Playboy.com grew from an informational page 
to an online destination with several 
subscription sites that feature content from the 
archives of  Playboy  Magazine, its international 
editions, and the company ’ s Special Editions. 
Some of the most popular features that appear 
online today are the complete library of 
Playmates, cover galleries and other features that 
leverage our historic archives. As the online 
audience grew so did the need to create content 
specifi cally for the online space. In 2000, 
Playboy Cyber Girls were introduced, followed 
in 2005 by UK Cyber Girls. A similar pattern is 
happening in the mobile space. Playboy Mobile 
launched internationally in 2003 and 
domestically in 2005. The technology supporting 
mobile phones is making it possible to view 
images and video as if you are sitting on the 
couch reading a magazine or watching TV.  

 We ’ ve had great success extending the power of 
Playboy ’ s brand online to create a host of new 
franchise features. We ’ re taking that expertise and 
using it to develop fresh, new concepts by 
leveraging digital asset management and metadata 
models for the mobile space, creating content we 
know Playboy fans will enjoy. 
 John D. Thomas, Editorial Director, Playboy Online  

 As new technologies are introduced, content creation 
teams are formed to support the new businesses. As 
an example, fi ve creative groups produce content for 
the businesses previously discussed. Collaboration 
among these teams is part of our culture, but each of 

these teams has an audience whose taste for new 
content needs to be met Enter PAM. 

THE VALUE OF PAM
 The fi rst task PAM had to address was 
the creation of a controlled vocabulary and 
a metadata model that would allow all of 
the assets to be cataloged, organized and 
made searchable across the company to speed 
reuse. Leveraging pre-existing electronic workfl ows 
for print and online production, images are entered 
into the PAM system. As each team reviews the 
image for use, they answer questions that build the 
metadata ’ s search criteria. The metadata model is 
used to extend Playboy Online ’ s assets for use in 
the Playboy Cyber Club, Playboy Net, Playboy 
Daily and other online destinations offering 
customers a variety of choices and options. This 
metadata is then used to mine archives for use on 
international websites, magazines and mobile 
offerings. In 2005, revenues from the use of these 
assets in the digital space was over  $ 10 million. 

 A rather complex system evolved over time for 
the continued, extended use of images and 
articles created under the Playboy brand. DAM 
brings to light opportunities that might have 
been overlooked with vast, unwieldy archives. 
With commitment and support from our CEO, 
CFO, CIO and our creative teams, the PAM 
system has been able to create signifi cant benefi ts. 
Flexibility together with an understanding of the 
organic nature of creative workfl ows has been 
important to our initial success. While workfl ow 
changes are underway, access to material is 
quicker and getting product to market is faster. 

A VISIONARY FUTURE
 Playboy Enterprises ’  foresight in establishing a 
tradition of repurposing assets was the natural 
springboard for the company ’ s embracing the 
emerging fi eld of Asset Management. What started 
as a way to use outtakes from photo sessions, the 
publication of unpublished or otherwise unused 
images, is now an emerging industry in itself. The 
ability of organizations to tailor rapidly expanding 
technologies to their needs is crucial to their 
continued fi nancial growth. The life of an asset is 
limited only by imagination and willingness to 
adopt these new technologies. We already are 
pursuing similar opportunities to repurpose our 
video, TV, radio, book publishing, 
product-licensing, and catalog assets.   
     


	Playboy's digital journey: Extending the power of the brand
	PAM: MANAGING ASSETS, MAXIMIZING PROFITABILITY
	INTRODUCTION
	STILL IMAGE ASSETS
	THE VALUE OF PAM
	A VISIONARY FUTURE