• Brandweek, Thursday, October 12, 2006 12 PM

Porn mag Penthouse is trying to relaunch itself as an upscale, slightly more explicit version of Maxim and the other lad books. "We're in the middle of a brand reinvention," says Publisher Diane Silberstein. Until around 2004, Penthouse was long regarded as hardcore Playboy, with far more graphic, often fetishistic, pictorials than the older magazine.

But with the rise of the Internet, porn buffs drifted toward a huge library of free images available online and the major adult magazine brands--Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler--suffered circulation and ad revenue declines. Mark Edmiston, managing director of AdMedia Partners, a New York-based magazine acquisition advisor, says he thinks Penthouse has a chance of succeeding. "It does have a good shot because Playboy seems to be doing the same thing it's always been doing, and it's not been all that successful in attracting younger males," he says.

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