Playboy Oasis Campaign Hops to It

Cable World, April 17, 2000 by Rani Long

Playboy TV is hopping to its most prolific affiliate participation drive ever with its new Oasis marketing campaign. Nine top cable MSOs have signed on, as have all 5 major direct-to-home distributors. They will promote the campaign through cross-channel spots and print ads, targeting 23 million addressable households.

Though PBTV has been successful in past campaigns, Jim English, president-Playboy TV Networks Worldwide, gives his rationale for the overwhelming and positive response from affiliates. "Timing really is everything," he said. "I think because the cable operators and satellite providers are short against their budget for pay-per-view revenue, they know how well adult product performs ... they come back to our brand. Because the brand is promotable, it's defensible ... adult programming does work, and Playboy does work, and the Oasis campaign happened to hit their sensibilities just right." He added, "Adult generates a huge amount of money ... especially for something that's not very highly promoted or publicized."

Viewers in the U.S. and Canada can sample the network May 13 and will then be offered a discounted subscription.