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Playboy wants Wal-Mart women
No. 1 retailer surprised by magazine's Web site's 'search for sexiest women.'
September 15, 2003: 3:17 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - If you're a female cashier or a corporate officer at Wal-Mart, age 18 and over, and you're not afraid to shed your inhibitions in front of the camera, Playboy wants you.

Playboy.com announced Monday it is searching for the sexiest women at Wal-Mart Stores (WMT: Research, Estimates), the world's biggest retailer.

"Wal-Mart employees have a reputation for being cheerful and now Playboy.com is giving them a chance to smile for the camera," Playboy said in a press release. "Playboy.com wants Wal-Mart's sexiest assets to roll back their clothes and pose nude."

Playboy ran a similar-themed 'Women of Enron' last year and 'Women of Starbucks' photospreads in the magazine earlier this year. The Wal-Mart theme is the first for Playboy.com.

The offer took Wal-Mart by surprise.

"I'm not aware that Playboy put out something like this (referring to the press release)," said Tom Williams, spokesman for Wal-Mart. "But this is not a ballpark that Wal-Mart wants to play in."

He declined to say whether Wal-Mart would take any action against an employee who decided to take up Playboy's offer.

"We knew that this would be a very provocative thing for us to do," said John Thomas, editor of Playboy.com. "Wal-Mart has a conservative corporate image and we knew they wouldn't be thrilled. But we're hoping that the company will be pleased once they see how fun the pictures are and how empowered the women at Wal-Mart feel."

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Recently Wal-Mart, in an effort to spread its wholesome image as a family store, said it would put covers on a few women's magazines that typically display racy pictures and story titles.

Bentonville, Ark.- based Wal-Mart also banned three men's magazines, including FHM, Maxim, and Stuff, earlier this year because it said it had received complaints from customers about their content.

In the past, Wal-Mart has refused to sell CDs that carry warning labels about explicit lyrics. Instead, the store sells sanitized versions of albums, with some songs omitted or covers redrawn to pass muster with the chain's buyers.  Top of page




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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.