After a little finagling and creativity, Playboy has managed to relaunch an impressive content-heavy app for the iPhone, all while playing nice with Apple's staunch no-nudity clause. 

The new Playboy for iPhone app positions the brand as digital bespoke of the Playboy lifestyle with articles on travel, clothes, food, cars and girls. "As the on-the-go extension of the Playboy brand, our new app brings the best of Playboy with original, thought-provoking and enticing bite-sized content that captures our design-driven and discernible style," said CEO Scott Flanders in a press release.

The rebuilt app is designed to feed new Gen Y fans the content they crave—and that's not just graphic photos of the lady of the month. The app is targeting younger men who’d "rather consume the content digitally on their device than on their couch in paper form," Altimeter Group’s mobile strategy analyst, Chris Silva told Freep.com. "The way people are consuming and buying their media has totally changed."Continue reading...

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In socially conservative India, consumers can’t actually buy a copy of Playboy magazine even if all they want to do is read the articles. The mag known for its pics of naked women is banned from being sold in the second most populated country in the world, but that doesn’t mean the Playboy brand isn’t strong there. 

It is so strong, in fact, that a Playboy club is set to open in mid-December there, accoding to the Times of India — but don’t get too excited, fellas. The club won’t have any nudity.

“There will be nothing contrary to Indian sensibilities,” said Sanjay Gupta, chief executive officer of Mumbai-based PB Lifestyle Ltd, which has licensed the Playboy name in India and plans to open eight clubs there, the Wall Street Journal reports. “We are in the process of launching a sustained PR campaign starting this month to dissociate Playboy with adult content and nudity.” 

"Bunnies are an integral part of Playboy culture," said Gupta to AP. "We will have bunnies but keeping in mind Indian sensibilities, we are toning down the costume. We are working very closely with Playboy to design a bunny outfit for India." Details of the Indian bunny costume, he added, are "confidential."Continue reading...

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Now out of Beta, GoldRun's smartphone platform uses objects as ‘virtual breadcrumbs’ for scavenger hunts and branded campaigns with pots of social commerce gold at the end of the digital rainbow. It engages users real-time with an interactive experience that yields real world rewards.

It strutted its stuff at the recent Fashion's Night Out event in New York, partnering with Bloomingdale’s and NBC on “Look the Part, Be the Part,” the first co-braned cross-industry promotion to use augmented reality.

Running through Sept. 26, shoppers at Bloomingdale’s 44 stores nationwide can participate in a photo opp with virtual characters from NBC’s fall lineup by downloading the free app, and are eligible to win a trip to Los Angeles for an on-set visit or a grand prize trip to Chicago for a walk-on role in NBC's new series, The Playboy Club.

In addition to posing with bunnies from The Playboy Club, Bloomie’s reps with GoldRun- loaded iPads are on hand to snap photos for customers with virtual cast members from four other new NBC shows: Whitney (starring Whitney Cummings), Free Agents, Prime Suspect with Maria Bello, and Up All Night, featuring Christina Applegate, Maya Rudolph and Will Arnett.Continue reading...

When the forever-pajamaed Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club in Chicago in 1960, it caused quite a stir -- like pretty much everything else the potent magazine publisher did at the time. The place featured young women in the classic Playboy Bunny costumes serving food and cocktails while live entertainment played. It was high-class “entertainment for men.”

Times changed and Playboy closed its club in Chicago back in 1988. It wasn’t alone. All the Clubs across the globe closed by 1998, with the final holdout in Lansing, Michigan. However, the financially struggling company that was recently privatized with Hefner’s big bucks started licensing out the brand in 2006. The Club can now be found in such places as London, Macau, and The Palms casino in Las Vegas.

Now add another Club to the mix: According to the Chicago Tribune, Tom Morgan, general counsel for Boston-based Tremont Realty Capital, has gathered a few Chicago investors and is looking to open a new Club in the Windy City in 2012.Continue reading...