NUTS AND ZOO HAD LAUNCHED WITH THE SAME TEMPLATE OF SPORT, CARS AND CELEBRITY WOMEN. BUT ZOO FOUND STILL BUYING NUTS, SETTING NEW RECORDS.

Phil Hilton
We went to the very edges of our market. We went for the youngest guys and the very oldest guys that could possibly buy it and we made a magazine they all liked. Fathers and sons could enjoy this. We wanted a product with enormous broad mainstream appeal.

Nuts vs. Zoo TO SELL MORE COPIES, NUTS USED PSYCHOLOGICAL INSIGHTS INTO OLDER MEN.

Phil Hilton
We found guys would go through this barrier, really in their late 20s when they settle down, they'd nest, they'd actually think about kids and suddenly they'd become very sensitive about death and about the sad things in life. It means something to them for the first time.

THE FIRST ISSUES FEATURED NICE HAPPY IMAGES THAT DID NOT SCARE OFF OLDER GUYS.

Phil Hilton
We were very consciously in a safer place than Zoo. So if they were gory, if they were swearing, we wouldn't be.

NUTS AND ZOO HAD LAUNCHED WITH THE SAME TEMPLATE OF SPORT, CARS AND CELEBRITY WOMEN. BUT ZOO FOUND ITSELF BEHIND IN SALES - AND HAD NOTHING TO LOSE BY TAKING RISKS. IGNORING THE MASS MARKET, ZOO WENT FOR NICHE BUYERS - YOUNG BRITISH MALES. PAUL MERRILL USED A KEY INSIGHT INTO THEIR PSYCHOLOGY TO ATTRACT THEM. TO TEST THEIR MACHISMO, YOUNG MEN LIKED TO LOOK AT SHOCKING IMAGES.

Paul Merrill
Right from the start Zoo did use some fairly gory pictures. the readers lapped them up, they absolutely loved them. We showed a picture of some chickens in China that were burning so they'd gone out for young guys knowing that they love shock material and they love to see how much they can take and go up against their mates... 'Have you seen that picture... woooah get a load of that', and see how they reel back. Older guys would say, 'I'm not buying that, it's appalling’.

AT FIRST, PHIL HILTON WAS AGAINST USING REALLY SHOCKING IMAGES. BUT AS ZOO PRESSED AHEAD, THE FIRST CRACKS APPEARED IN NUTS' "FATHERS AND SONS" POLICY AND A GORE WAR BROKE OUT BETWEEN THE MEN'S WEEKLIES. ZOO RAN A SHARK BITE, NUTS HAD A SPIDER BITE. ZOO SHOWED A POST IN THE RIBS, NUTS HAD A POKE IN THE EYE. IT SOON SEEMED THERE WAS NO IMAGE TOO SHOCKING FOR EITHER MAGAZINE. JUST WEEKS INTO THE BATTLE, PHIL HILTON WAS SACRIFICING THE IDEA OF A NICE MAGAZINE TO WIN HIGHER SALES. BUT EVEN SO ZOO WOULD PUSH HARDER AND FURTHER, FINDING IMAGES SUCH AS A ZOO KEEPER WITH HIS HAND IN AN ELEPHANT'S BEHIND TO BRING ON ORGASM.

Paul Merrill
I think Nuts were reluctant at first to show those sort of images which probably gave us a slight advantage as it just made Zoo a little bit more edgy a little bit cooler, the sort of magazine you could take down the pub and show to your mates.

WITH THEIR WAR HOTTING UP, THE RIVAL EDITORS NOW BEGAN TO QUIZ BRITAIN'S LADS TO GET FEEDBACK ON THE NEW MAGAZINES. BUT NUTS AND ZOO HAD VERY DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THEIR RESEARCH.

Phil Hilton
We'd go out to the suburbs, often Croydon, and sit in a middle aged person's lounge with porcelain figurines and stuff around and with a lot of slightly uncomfortable looking 20-something guys and ask them questions about themselves. We would hire rooms out in pubs all over the country. We'd get 8 blokes to come in, give them as much beer as we could, and take them through the magazine and get their view. The more beer they had the more honest they'd get. The more beer we had the more defenceless we'd got. By the end of the evening we'd all had about 6 or 7 pints and wake up the next day and completely forget everything that had been said.

NUTS AND ZOO CLASHED OVER WHERE THE TRUE SOUL OF BRITISH MEN WAS BARED - IN THE SITTING ROOM OR THE PUB. BUT BOTH KNEW THE KEY DECISION OF WHICH MAGAZINE TO BUY WAS MADE AT THE NEWSSTAND. SO PHIL HILTON CAME UP WITH A REMARKABLE NOTION. BY STUDYING HOW LADS USED MAGAZINES IN THE ACCELERATED CULTURE OF THE NOUGHTIES, HE CAME TO BELIEVE BRITISH MEN NO LONGER READ MAGAZINES - THEY WATCHED THEM.

Phil Hilton
We had the idea that they were viewers rather than readers and that really they'd learnt through TV, to take in visual stimuli very quickly. We wanted it to be a magazine that people could read in about 30 seconds.

AND THE MOST IMPORTANT IMAGE OF ALL? THE GIRL ON THE COVER. SHE WOULD BECOME THE MAIN WEAPON IN THE MAGAZINE WAR.

Nuts vs. Zoo

The convention in the men's press for a long time had been to put girls on the cover. In the very early days people were putting men on the cover of men's magazines but I think there was a breakthrough in the mid 90s that actually men would really respond well to a magazine with a female celebrity on the front and if you could get a female celebrity in a relatively sexy pose, well then that was gold dust... that was the way to do it. We had Kelly Brook on the cover of our first sold issue. Then we had Beyonce, Britney Spears, then we had Rachel Hunter, Denise Van Outon and so on.

Phil Hilton
I remember sending my deputy over to LA to meet the publicists of the world's biggest female stars to try and woo them so they'd give us permission to use their pictures, of people like J-Lo. And we felt these were the women that would really send our magazine into the stratosphere. Everyone knew them, everyone found them attractive, it was great. The idea of the international celebrity just didn't sell nearly as well.

Nuts vs. Zoo WHEN THE CIRCULATION FIGURES CAME IN, SALES WERE DOWN. INTENSE RESEARCH BEGAN TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY - WHY DID HOLLYWOOD STARS TURN OFF BRITISH MEN?

Phil Hilton
We went out to the groups and we asked them how they felt about people like J-Lo. Having seen these sales - J-Lo, international celebrities, against women they knew from the pages of the Star. And what they'd say was, 'Oh I could meet her, she's British and if she met me she'd be nice to me'. They had a sense of being there's no chance of me meeting J-Lo and I think if I met J-Lo she wouldn't like me that much.

Nuts vs. Zoo

ALONGSIDE FEARS OF FAMOUS WOMEN, PHIL HILTON SAW BRITISH MEN HAD PROFOUND PREJUDICES ABOUT ALL FEMALE IMAGERY. LADS WERE FAR LESS RADICAL ABOUT SEX THAN HAD BEEN THOUGHT, QUICK TO JUDGE WOMEN ON HOW SEXUALLY ACTIVE THEY PERCEIVED THEM TO BE.

Phil Hilton
They kind of project onto images very strong ideas like if the girl's got a lovely kind face, she looks classy, she looks like the kind of girl I could take on a date. Nahh she's a little bit dirty, I'm not sure I feel that comfortable with her. We quickly got the impression of very sexually conservative young men.

ARMED WITH THESE INSIGHTS, PHIL HILTON MADE A GROUNDBREAKING DECISION TO DITCH THE HOLLYWOOOD STARS. ON APRIL THE 26TH, 2004, NUTS PUT THEIR SEX RESEARCH TO THE TEST, USING PAGE 3 PINUPS TO CALM SEXUAL ANXIETIES.

Nuts vs. Zoo

Eric Fuller
We took a risk and actually put pin ups on the front of the magazine. And so at the end of April, we'd been publishing for around three months, we did our first pin up cover... 'Britain's Hottest new Pin-Ups - all new photos'... we did Lucy Pinder, Emma Davis and Michelle Marsh on the front of the magazine and that absolutely just sold like there was no tomorrow.

Phil Hilton
Here I found something which really was news to me and was absolutely transforming our sales. Suddenly you get to know glamour girls, their agents and this is a whole new world to me.

BUT ACROSS THE RIVER AT ZOO, PAUL MERRILL HAD ARRIVED AT THE SAME CONCLUSIONS - BUT FOR STARKLY DIFFERENT REASONS.

Nuts vs. Zoo

Paul Merrill
Although there isn't no scientifically proven mathematical formula for what makes a sexy girl, size of tittage is I think a clearly defining factor and I think umm that plus the promise that she is going to disrobe inside the magazine is probably more important and gunna give you more sales than a girl who is particularly famous. I think the readers, cause they know these girls are big stars they know they are going to get their kit off inside Zoo. So, they don't buy it.

PAUL MERRILL THOUGHT HE KNEW WHAT WAS HOLDING BACK SALES. LADS WANTED TO SEE BARE CHESTS, AND HAD FIGURED THAT WHEN THERE WAS A STAR ON THE COVER, THEY HAD NO CHANCE OF SEEING HER BREASTS INSIDE. IN RESPONSE TO THIS INSIGHT HE STARTED THE TALLY THAT WOULD SET ZOO APART - THE NIPPLE COUNT.

Nuts vs. Zoo

Paul Merrill
We had a strict nipple count. Every single week we'd make sure there was no more than about 25 nipples throughout the magazine. We had work experience girls to count up the nipples each week.

ZOO HAD LAUNCHED WITH JUST A PAIR OF BREASTS, AND NUTS WITH NONE. BUT BY MAY 2004, PAUL MERRILL WAS RUNNING TEN TIMES AS MANY NIPPLE PHOTOS AS HIS RIVAL.

Paul Merrill
Phil Hilton famously described Nuts as a magazine that sons could read with their fathers, which was probably true at first cause it was a quite a nerdy magazine, maybe slightly older than Zoo, very safe, no nudity, no swearing no gory pictures, where Zoo was never designed to be a magazine that sons could read with their fathers, that idea would be horrific to most Zoo readers. We'd gone for this fathers and sons thing. Zoo had gone for quite a different angle on the whole thing, most specifically the nipples. They said, these are the people you know you like and we said - we think we can get those guys and we can also get these other guys as well by not having nipples. For the older blokes, they were much more sensitive to something they could take home or read on the train.

ZOO MOCKED NUTS MODESTY.

Paul Merrill
Nuts was a magazine for blokes who shagged with the light off, Zoo was a magazine for blokes who shag with the light on.

AFTER THE FIRST EIGHT ISSUES, THE SALES GAP BETWEEN NUT AND ZOO WAS NARROWING. AND NUTS' RESEARCH DISCOVERED YOUNG GUYS THOUGHT ZOO WAS THE SEXIER MAGAZINE. PAUL MERRILL PUT IT DOWN TO HIS SIMPLE FORMULA:

Paul Merrill
What it boils down to is you want to see lots of flesh, you want to know that when you go inside you are going to see tits, you are gunna see arse, you are gunna see the whole shebang.

A SUMMIT MEETING WAS CALLED AT NUTS HQ.

Phil Hilton
You all sit in a darkened room and the researchers project up, usually in diagrammatic form, you'll see a pie chart of Sexy and there you'll see Zoo with a much bigger chunk of that pie for example. And we'd be looking for our small chunk of sexy pie and thinking we need that to get bigger pretty sharpish or we're in trouble.

TO FIND OUT WHAT TO DO, THE MEN IN IPC TOWER WENT BACK TO THE LADS THEMSELVES.

Eric Fuller
We asked readers what they thought about the girls in the magazine, we have a respondent saying, 'They are great pictures but there could be a few sexier ones, not porno but sexier'.

Nuts vs. Zoo

ARMED WITH THE NEW RESEARCH, THE BOARDROOM BATTLELINES WERE DRAWN. SHOULD NUTS DITCH ITS "FATHER AND SON" FAMILY FRIENDLY POLICY, AND GO ON A NIPPLE OFFENSIVE?

Phil Hilton
I felt we had to be the sexiest magazine on our market. Couldn't allow the other one to have that crown.

END PART 2