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Miley Cyrus performs at KIIS-FM's Wango
Tango concert in 2008.
Miley Cyrus performs at KIIS-FM's Wango
Tango concert in 2008.
Miley Cyrus’s Bare Skin Boosts Magazine Sales
July 21, 2008 3:51 PM
by
Rachel Balik
Fewer people are buying magazines, but the 435,000 people who purchased Vanity Fair’s June issue prove that sex will always sell.
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The June issue of Vanity Fair had Robert Kennedy on the cover, but it also contained the controversial photo spread of teen star Miley Cyrus. In one photo, she is covered only by a sheet, her bare back exposed, and in another, she is lying across her father in a Lolita-esque manner. The young star endured chastisement from the media and from the Disney Company after the photos leaked in April.
However, the photos have dramatically upped sales for Vanity Fair. The magazine sold 435,000 copies of its June issue, the most copies of any issue since last November. The numbers are unsurprising, given that a popular response to the photos in April was, “Sex Sells.” The high numbers couldn’t come at a better time for Vanity Fair, as the entire industry is suffering from dwindling ad sales. Magazine ad sales dropped 8.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008, reports Bloomberg.
After boosting Vanity Fair’s sales with her bare shoulders, Cyrus is working to maintain her own sales by protecting her good-girl image. Her latest album, “Breakout,” has a distinctly tween tone and is sure to evoke “a sigh of parental relief,” Entertainment Weekly says. But despite Cyrus’s best efforts to seem squeaky clean, a hacker was able to access her cell phone’s memory and recently posted provocative pictures of the teen star online.
However, the photos have dramatically upped sales for Vanity Fair. The magazine sold 435,000 copies of its June issue, the most copies of any issue since last November. The numbers are unsurprising, given that a popular response to the photos in April was, “Sex Sells.” The high numbers couldn’t come at a better time for Vanity Fair, as the entire industry is suffering from dwindling ad sales. Magazine ad sales dropped 8.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008, reports Bloomberg.
After boosting Vanity Fair’s sales with her bare shoulders, Cyrus is working to maintain her own sales by protecting her good-girl image. Her latest album, “Breakout,” has a distinctly tween tone and is sure to evoke “a sigh of parental relief,” Entertainment Weekly says. But despite Cyrus’s best efforts to seem squeaky clean, a hacker was able to access her cell phone’s memory and recently posted provocative pictures of the teen star online.
Headline Link: ‘Miley the Sexed-Up Minor Boosts “Vanity Fair” Sales’
A record 435,000 people bought the much talked-about issue of Vanity Fair, which contained a photo spread of the scantily clad 15-year-old pop star Miley Cyrus. It was the highest number of sales for Vanity Fair since last November, although it does not compare to the 740,000 issues that sold in September 2005 when Jennifer Aniston was on the cover.
Source: Portfolio.com
In addition to high magazine sales, Vanity Fair also received 915 responses to the Cyrus photo shoot, the most ever submitted. The letters are “mostly negative” and there are two times more than there were for the issue with the Jennifer Aniston cover, which sold almost twice as many copies.
Source: Women’s Wear Daily
Background: ‘Sex sells’ and the sagging magazine industry
When the Miley Cyrus photos were first leaked, many speculated that Cyrus was deliberately capitalizing on a “Lolita” image in order to make more money. “Fame, in these times of nano-second communication, has become less about talent and all about sex and bad manners, the more the better,” according to an op-ed in The Vancouver Sun, which asserts that no one should have feigned shock about Miley Cyrus’s apparent fall from innocence. Rather, the young starlet is simply getting in line with a trend that rewards bad behavior and relies on provocative images to capture public attention.
Source: findingDulcinea
Bloomberg.com reports that U.S. magazine ad sales dropped 8.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008, signaling the further decline of the magazine publishing industry. The Publishers Information Bureau said that, “the drop reflects broad economic weakness.”
Source: Bloomberg.com
Key Player: The two faces of Miley Cyrus
Entertainment Weekly assures its readers that Cyrus’s new album, “Breakout,” restores the singer’s good girl image and ensures that “a sigh of parental relief is heard across the land.” She sings about waking up for school, being misunderstood by her parents, fighting with friends and saving the environment.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
In July 2008, Cyrus’s cell phone memory was accessed by a hacker, who posted pictures of her online that showed her showering in a white t-shirt and baring her stomach. The hacker claims he has more provocative pictures, which he will sell to tabloids.
Source: Fox News
© 2008 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
