TORONTO – A Toronto-based adultery website that boasts more than eight million “cheating” members has had its 2011 Super Bowl ad rejected by Fox Broadcasting.
The founder of AshleyMadison.com, a dating site which offers “guaranteed affairs” to married people, says Fox has notified him that it will not air the commercial, which features porn star Savanna Samson.
Noel Biderman says he’s not surprised, despite the fact that he’s spent millions of dollars over the last year advertising on Fox, the network that will broadcast the NFL’s championship game on Feb. 6.
“What they’re ultimately saying is ‘Your brand, what you do, the community that you service … we don’t like that business,'” Biderman said in an interview Wednesday.
He believes the thinking behind the decision is flawed.
“If you stop my advertising, if you try to quash my service, people are still going to have affairs.
“They had them long before I came on to the scene and they’ll have them long after I’m no longer in existence.”
Fox did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
It is not the first time the Super Bowl has turned down an ad by the website, that tells married people “Life is short. Have an affair.” In 2009, the site’s ad was also rejected.
Super Bowl ads are a powerful marketing tool for companies that pay millions of dollars for 30-second air time.
The rejected commercials often generate as much buzz as those that make it to the Super Bowl, considered television’s most expensive night of advertising.
A number of commercials by animal rights group PETA, anti and pro-abortion groups and gay groups have been rejected in recent years, after being considered inappropriate.
Biderman defends his website’s ad, however, saying it’s ridiculous to think people who are happily married would watch it and decide to commit adultery.
“This notion that somehow my ad is gonna go and create an infidelity nation of Americans or Canadians who watch it is ridiculous. It’s beyond ridiculous.”
The ad features Samson telling a business meeting that her husband is cheating on her, only to discover all of her co-workers are also having affairs.
“She does not say ‘My husband is having an affair’, because the word ‘affair’ has been flagged in the past,’ Biderman explained with a chuckle.
It ends with Samson in skimpy red lingerie as one of her co-workers says, “Welcome to the club.”
Biderman says his business is “at the forefront of a changing tide around matrimony and how people behave around monogamy.” But he admits some people find it “hard to digest.”
