While Godaddy.com Super Bowl ads have been getting a lot of hype, another .Com company’s commercial has been rejected by Fox.
The site AshleyMadison.com, which can best be described as a dating site for married people that are looking to meet other people for some adult activity, often uses the tag line in its ads of:
“Life is Short. Have an Affair.”
Fox said that their department of “standards and practices has deemed the Ashley Madison spot is not acceptable to air on FOX.”
Noel Biderman who is the founder of the Toronto based company said he believes the commercial was rejected by the U.S. FOX television network because it features porn star Savanna Samson.”
“We really thought the commercial would be accepted,” said Biderman. “But I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
Ashley Madison.com says it has 7.3 million registered users.
If you want to see the rejected AshleyMadison.com ad, you can watch it here.
Submitting ‘racy’ ads that are sure to be rejected and then attempting to get the media to write about the ‘surprising’ rejection is standard operating procedure for AshleyMadison.com. They pull these stunts all the time, and the media falls for it every time.
Kind of makes you wonder about the editorial standards in today’s newsrooms, and the gullibility of some journalists… (I am not referring to you, Mike, when I make that comment.)
I even resisted posting this comment, since I am just helping give these folks more attention than they deserve.
Bill
There is not much better free publicity that you can get from a rejected Super Bowl ad for being too racy.
To me its a smart business move by a company whose whole business model is controversial.
It seems like there are at least 100 publications who have written about this judging from Google News feed and its only a few hours old
now, everybody knows how the viral marketing works … MUCH MORE (web) audience than a Super Bowl ad but WITHOUT pay the Super Bowl ad’s price!
Goes to show – “any press is good press”.
– TBC
@ MHB,
Agreed, it is a smart move by the company.
It’s the media that looks dumb for falling for this non-news story and giving the company tons of free publicity.
Must be a slow news day.
7.3 million subscribers! Now that’s what domain. Development should be about– developing relationships and recurring revenue. So when the PR draws traffic consider the lifetime value of converting that traffic.
Check this out…this guy is a loser–bitchin that he could not get the domain he wants
How Domain Hoarding is Killing Innovation
http://www.seattle20.com/blog/How-Domain-Hoarding-is-Killing-Innovation.aspx
I just couldn’t imagine an ad promoting adultery airing prime time at superbowl. Albiet the best time ever for the ad. If that ad ever airs during the superbowl than our Puritan roots are officially filtered out.