Stiff Competition
Fall, 2019
When an ambitious imitator took aim at Playboy, the magazine was forced to confront a hairy issueThe Playboy Rabbit Head found itself in unfamiliar territory in 1969: Penthouse ads. Bob Guccione, editor-publisher of the upstart British magazine, had decided to take his publication to the States, and he wanted advertisers to know exactly what he was targeting. “We’re going rabbit-hunting,” read the cut line below an unsubtle image of the Rabbit in a rifle’s cross-hairs. Hugh Hefner’s hugely suc...
