http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/08/news...alds/index.htm
September 08, 2004
Playboy Looking for Girls of McDonalds
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - After shopping at Wal-Mart and Home Depot, Playboy's latest craving is for McDonald's -- or rather for the women who work there.
Playboy.com is set to announce Wednesday that it is seeking America's sexiest McDonald's employees "to serve a little shake with their fries" and pose for the upcoming "Women of McDonald's" online pictorial.
The online publication of the adult men's magazine has previously run pictorials of the women of Enron, the collapsed energy trading company, of Starbucks the No. 1 coffee chain, of Wal-Mart the world's largest retailer and of home improvement chain Home Depot (HD: Research, Estimates).
"We're going after companies with an enormous brand name where there is also a likelihood of finding the 'girl next door' who has the potential to become a model," said John Thomas, editor of Playboy.com.
"With these pictorials, we're also picking the unexpected companies because it adds fun and drama. When you go to Home Depot or Wal-Mart to shop, you don't think of their employees appearing in Playboy. That zig-zag mentality works very well."
So well, apparently that the Wal-Mart and Home Depot pictorials turned into two of the Web site's most successful features to date, Thomas said.
"When we first announced the Wal-Mart pictorial, the news media didn't take us seriously and thought we were doing this as a joke,'" said Thomas. "But the response to the features has been tremendous. Some of the women even told us that this was the most glamorous thing that has happened to them."
For those employees at McDonald's interested in applying for the feature, Playboy.com said they can send a head shot and a full-body shot, bikini-clad or nude, and a few sentences about themselves no later than Sept. 29.
Playboy.com said it doesn't matter if the employee is a part-time cashier or a corporate officer. But they will have to supply a copy of a government-issued ID proving they are 18 or older, and a recent pay stub to show they indeed work at McDonald's.
