One of the world’s most iconic magazine brands has thrown its hat into the interactive print ring with Layar.

Playboy, the massively popular men’s entertainment magazine, has selected Layar as its provider of choice for interactive print going forward in the Netherlands. The half-century-old publication joins a rapidly growing list of publishers and printers teaming up with Layar to bring engaging digital content to print readers. Read all about it in our press release here.

Click here to try it out!

Starting with its most recent issue, on sale today, Playboy Netherlands will work with Certified Layar Partner Limebizz to provide exclusive digital content to print readers when they scan special pages with the Layar App. You can buy the magazine in the Playboy webshop. Together they’ve crafted some beautiful artwork and iconography combining the logos of Playboy and Layar to draw the reader’s attention to the extra content.

In this issue, readers can vote for their favorite playmate of the last year to decide who becomes Playmate of the Year for 2012. On the cover, the three lovely nominees – Beau, Nadine and Lotte – come to life to entice your vote. Inside, last year’s winner – Zimra – introduces readers to the interactive magazine in a video. (Hint: There’s a secret page giving you a look at exactly what made Zimra last year’s winner! See if you can find it!)

Flip through the photos below to check it out!

Readers can view extra photo slideshows of the nominees and take a look behind the scenes videos from their photoshoots. Other content includes videos of cool gadgets, cars and tech, a flashback to the girls of 1984, music playlist links (including a cool ticker of music using our new HTML widget), movie, tv and videogame trailers, contests to win prizes and much, much more!

We caught up with Patrick Goldsteen, Editor in Chief for Playboy NL, to discuss how this special issue came to be.

What made you decide to jump in with Layar?
We saw some other magazines who were experimenting with Layar. This gave us some insights into what we could do with it and we saw some great opportunities to extend the experience of the magazine reader. As Playboy we have a great amount of content but are limited to the 114 pages of the magazine. With Layar we virtually have an unlimited amount of possibilities to publish extra content.

What are your goals for this project?
During our recent restyle we focused on upgrading the quality of the content and with Layar we put our digital content within hands-reach of the magazine readers. This is the first step; after this we are planning to create extra interactive content with the HTML possibilities of Layar.

What do you like most about using Layar?
It really brings our content to life, like the cover. The cover would normally be static but since the cover now consists of a video, readers can see their favorite models move, talk and interact with them. This brings the experience really close to the readers.

Why bring interactive print to Playboy?
The majority of the Playboy readers are young adults within the age range of 18 to 30. They grew up in the digital age and their mobile device can almost be seen as their most precious asset. So we bring them extra content in a manner they understand on a device the love to use.

Plans for the future?
Our plan is to continue to experiment with Layar and challenge ourselves in new creative possibilities. It’s for sure that this won’t be a one-of-a-kind Playboy edition, this will be our second content layer for the magazine, and we are looking forward to creating these extra experiences for our readers.

It’s true that Playboy’s audience is a perfect fit for interactive print. Not only are they younger and more digitally connected as it is, but let’s face it – it’s safe to say that Playboy readers are far more engaged with the content in the pages than your average magazine reader.

There’s a lot to love in this issue of Playboy. The extra content is terrific and is just what readers of Playboy are looking for … more! The calls-to-action are beautifully created, blending Layar and Playboy’s logos into one instantly recognizable icon. Combined with color coded icons that draw readers to photos, videos and other content, it’s a masterful implementation.

UPDATE – February 18th, 2013 – Due to the explicit nature of this campaign, some of the content can not be viewed in the iOS version of the Layar App.