When sales fall, go naked!

Mainstream mags take Sports Illustrated approach: naked models!

Esquire is taking the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue approach to magazine sales, as they have a naked, painted on Bar Refaeli on the cover of their July issue.

The Israeli beauty sexes up fiction and has the magazine’s contents scrawled across her body, with a new Stephen King short story teased on her arms.

Rolling Stone’s “green issue” is a real attention-getter. Australian model Miranda Kerr — you may have seen her as a Victoria’s Secret angel or on fiancé Orlando Bloom’s arm.

According to news.com.au, “She says she decided to go “au naturel” to raise awareness of the environment, specifically koalas.”

My comment: Yeah, she’s ‘raising awareness of the environment’ all right, without even showing her ‘koala’. Maybe all the eco-warriors should get naked. Al? Tipper?

I assume that if the magazines’  newsstand sales and subscriptions continue to fall, we may see a further move in their photography toward Larry Flynt-land. While I have no quarrel with naked pictures of young women who are adults, I do think of these covers as exploitative, as they plainly are. Demi Moore, see what you started at Vanity Fair?

What’s next, a Vogue or Allure with a naked Sacha Baron Cohen and his famous butt, or Elle or Cosmopolitan with a strategically covered Leonardo Di Caprio, or maybe a Martha Stewart Living with Lebron James, or an O mag from Oprah featuring a sprawling Kobe Bryant cover?

My wife says no. “Women don’t like pictures of naked men very much. Look at Playgirl, which even showed the whole enchilada… gone. It’s like my father always said, ‘Naked women are just prettier than naked men.’”

OK, Men’s Fitness, or Popular Mechanics, bring on the nude covers! How about some naked Helen Mirren or a birthday suit version of Angelica Huston? I’m buyin’!

I wonder how long before Catherine Zeta-Jones has to take it all off for T-Mobile? Her current selling-it-door-to-door TV spots are the most brazen “wanna do me for a new cell phone plan?” I’ve yet seen come out of the ad agency world. Way to go, Mrs. Douglas.

But so far, no one is buying Playboy, the company with the most naked girls of all, which is rumored to be for sale for about $300,000,000. I assume that’s just for the magazine ‘empire’ and not actually including “the girls”. But in today’s business ‘environment’, one never knows.