EXPERT: Lindsay Lohan Was Still Worth $1 Million, Even After The Photo Leak.

Playboy Wins Even After The Lindsay Lohan Photos Were Leaked.

Ask around the Playboy offices and you’ll get varying opinions about whether the worldwide spread of Lindsay Lohan’s magazine pictorial is a good thing or a bad thing. It’s true, some people are freaking out, since they had expected a big rush of sales and had ordered more than their standard number of issues to accomodate the sales.

A source in the marketing world (not specifically associated with the Playboy issue) reminds them to calm down, seeing a huge silver lining, and the potential for even more sales.

“Sure, it could mean that fewer people buy the magazine, but it could go the other way too. The truth is, we live in a world where a good portion of people would wait until the issue came out and the pictures were online after the fact anyway. What matters is… people are talking about Playboy! This story is all over the place. The estimated one million dollars could never buy this level of publicity. Consider that a 30 second Super Bowl ad costs around 2.6 million. Now, with the leak, blogs, newspapers and even mainstream television media are reporting in advance of the issue. They paid Lindsay an estimated 1 million… I think they’re getting their money’s worth already.”

Click HERE for the photos, not entirely safe for work. 

Any time a big name agrees to do a pictorial for the magazine, the accompanying buzz is often more powerful than the photos themselves. Look back at how many times you’ve heard of a magazine ‘obtaining’ revealing old photos of a celebrity – often the pics themselves were underwhelming. It happened to Vanna White.

Then there is the Vanessa Williams example. Think back to an issue of Penthouse you remember. That’s probably the only one. Not only is it a collector’s item now, but the issue itself was a branding dream. The silver lining? Vanessa Williams, who was dethroned from her Miss America title over the photographs, remains (arguably) the single most recognized celebrity who has ever held the title. Hopefully Lindsay Lohan has most of her scandal behind her. The photos are being received as fairly sophisticated. And some people may just want to own a copy based on Lohan’s star power alone. This could still be a collector or movie fan’s dream issue.

“There will be equity in having this issue both if she makes a great comeback someday, or, sad but true, if she doesnt.”

Playboy was expected to release the Lindsay Lohan issue on December 15^th… but in the age of technology, it is nearly impossible to keep such a buzzworthy issue under wraps.

Fox News reports that copies of the photos: “were either hacked or stolen from the magazine and uploaded to a file-sharing website based in Russia.”

The expression ‘it’s a small world’ has never been truer since the dawn of the technological age. Worldmags.net, a digital magazine clearinghouse based out of the Ukraine apparently made the article and 10 accompanying photos available for purchase through a file storage service.

My source also points out that some people will still not look at the photos online, or won’t look at them with the same level of interest as they will the  magazine. “It’s often difficult for people to look at this content easily at the office or even at home. It’s just like hiding the magazine from your mom or your wife! Some people will be afraid to look at work, and some people will not want their wives to know they’re looking. Those people can go buy the magazine and hide it under their mattress,” he jokes. “I’m sure some people at Playboy are irritated. But they should be seeing a very bright side to this situation.”

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