Meet the Playboy Reader

We'd like you to meet a personal friend of ours. We've been closely associated with him for more than four years, and in that time we've learned a good deal about his tastes, attitudes and interests, but just recently we discovered a number of new facts about him that we never knew before. If our friend seems familiar, it is because he is a composite of you, yourself, and all the other readers of this magazine.

Daniel Starch and Staff conducts the only independent, continuing survey of magazine readership in the U.S. and it is subscribed to by a majority of the nation's leading magazines. Starch has just issued its first report on Playboy, in a special supplement to its Fifty-second Consumer Magazine Report, and we thought you'd be interested in learning how you and your fellow Playboy readers came out.

It is important to publishers to have an accurate picture of those who read their publications. It is helpful to editors in planning issues and even more meaningful to the directors of advertising faced with the problem of selling their particular audience to the gray flannel gentlemen in the ad agencies along Madison Avenue. The Starch Report on Playboy readers is so spectacular that another men's magazine attempted to withdraw from the survey when they saw it. We say attempted, because some magazines are included in the survey even though they don't like the results.

(continued on page 76)Playboy Reader(continued from page 63)

Age

It is the young man who is willing to try new ideas, new styles, and as a result, starts new trends. Witness the national popularity of young men's fashions: walking shorts, the cap and the Ivy League suit. The median age of the Playboy reader is 25 -- seven years younger than the average reader of any other magazine in the men's field. 75.5% of Playboy's male readership is concentrated in the 18-to-34-year age group -- the highest percentage of any of the more than 50 magazines in the survey.

Education

The Playboy reader is younger and he is also better educated. 54.6% of the male readers of Playboy are college educated -- the highest percentage of any men's magazine in the survey, Playboy is B.M.O.C., too -- Big Magazine On Campus -- with a full 22.7% of its male readers currently enrolled in college. That's a higher percentage than any other magazine surveyed by Starch and more than four times the percentage for the next magazine for men.

Income

The Playboy reader is younger, and better educated, and he also enjoys a higher family income than that of any other men's magazine. The median income for the Playboy household is $7,234 -- more than 30% above the national average -- a full 10% higher than the income for any other magazine in the men's field -- and second only to the New Yorker among all magazines surveyed by Starch. The Starch Report also includes a median income for the upper half of a magazine's readership and only three publications rate $10,000+ in this category: the New Yorker, Playboy and U.S. News & World Report.

Marital Status

Approximately half of Playboy's readers (46.8%) are free men and the other half are free in spirit only. But a majority of those married are newlyweds: 36.6% of the heads of Playboy households have been married within the past five years -- by far the highest percentage of any magazine studied by Starch.

Apparel

Married or single, the Playboy reader has the wherewithal and is willing to spend it. 41.7% of Playboy households spent more than $500 for apparel during the past 12 months, the highest percentage of any magazine studied.

Travel

The Playboy reader gets around. 44.8% of Playboy households spent more than $200 during the past 12 months on vacation travel; 26% spent more than $200 on business travel. Among all magazines studied, Playboy ranks second only to the New Yorker on vacation travel, third to the New Yorker and U.S. News & World Report on business travel. Playboy leads all men's magazines in travel for business and pleasure.

Automobiles

58.1% of Playboy households purchased an automobile during the past year. And 6.3% of Playboy's readers are able to ride high, wide and handsome in three or more family-owned cars. Both figures are unmatched by any other magazine in the Starch survey.

Tobacco

79.8% of Playboy's male readers smoke cigarettes -- the highest percentage of any magazine studied by Starch. 24.5% smoke cigars -- the highest figure reported by Starch for any men's magazine.

Liquor

80.5% of Playboy families drink or serve alcoholic beverages at home -- the highest percentage of all the more than 50 magazines in the report, Playboy ranks first in beer and whiskey, second only to the New Yorker in wine.

Insurance

26% of Playboy households purchased life insurance during the past 12 months. In this characteristic of responsible stability, Playboy is second only to Parents among all magazines studied by Starch.

Housewares

A larger percentage of Playboy families bought new electric coffee makers, food mixers, fans, irons and toasters during the past 12 months than those receiving any of the other magazines reported on by Starch, confirming the picture of the playboy reader as being at the peak period of purchasing.

Duplication

Advertising men are interested in the duplication of magazine readership with other magazines and this part of the survey produced some startling facts. The young man who reads Playboy doesn't spend a lot of time with the most popular mass circulation magazines. 93% of the Playboy readers reported they had not read the current issue of Life, 92% had not read The Saturday Evening Post and 91% had not read the current Look. The Playboy man is not only a perfect prospect for advertisers -- Playboy is the only practical way of reaching him.

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It was Robert Burns who voiced the hope that God would give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us. A difficult thing: each of us is, primarily, an individual rather than a one-man repository of statistics. But we -- you readers and we editors -- do have a kinship of tastes and aspirations, of outlook, of interests. It's gratifying to know that this constellation of attributes, this orientation of the personality, is possessed by the men who are -- statistically -- the leaders in their liking for and ability to attain the good things of this life. For us to be among them and to be their voice makes us happy.