Every year Canadians moan and groan about not being able to watch American Super Bowl ads.
But this year, when a Canadian company wanted buy air time on CTV for an ad shown in the U.S., the broadcaster said no.
The company is called The Ashley Madison Agency. Sounds classy doesn't it.
A quick look on the company's website tells a different story when you see the simple tag line "Life is short. Have an affair." It's a dating service for married people looking to have an extra-marital affair.
CTV didn't object to the company's ad because the content was offensive. The ads had already run south of the border and they weren't any worse than the late night fare for telephone chat lines or other dating services.
What they did object to was a business that promotes adultery. They said Ashley Madison's ad didn't meet their "standards for the quality brands associated with this premiere television property."
I guess "As seen on Howard Stern" wasn't endorsement enough for them.
Visitors to the site are met with words like discreet and the promise of meeting someone just like them. It even has a link to an infidelity quiz on Oprah's website for people who want to know if cheating is for them, I guess.
Ashley Madison's president responded to CTV's snub by comparing his ads to beer or liquor commercials and challenged the network to stop airing those too.
"That's a product that literally kills tens of thousands of people each year, " he said in a statement last week.
While that may be true, drinking on the whole is a socially acceptable activity. People can drink responsibly, but I don't know of any responsible way to have an affair you don't want your wife or husband to find out about.
Television networks should have the right to decide which ads they want to run and which ones they don't. It's no different than airing shows they find morally acceptable.
CTV is a business and should have a moral code they follow. We all expect companies to act in a responsible way and making a stand on moral grounds, whether or not we agreed with their position is a responsible thing to do.
In this case, CTV's position was absolutely right.
Even though not everyone agrees with drinking, people who think having an affair they hide from the spouse is OK would definitely be in the minority.
And the men and women having affairs through Ashley Madison must not think it's socially acceptable, otherwise they wouldn't be using the company's discreet service to hide it from their significant others.
At least the site's customers can sleep well knowing they aren't just throwing their money away if they don't find a partner.
The company has an affair guarantee. It even says 100 per cent so you know they must be good.
If you don't find someone within three months of buying the affair guarantee package Ashley Madison will refund the $249 dollars it costs to buy the package and have a guaranteed affair.
Of course there are rules that need to be followed and expectations that need to be met. Sounds something like a marriage.
Buying ad time during the Super Bowl is a smart move for Ashley Madison. Football is a sport with a mostly male audience who watch the games without their wives.
Maybe the company bought into the stereotypical idea of the nagging wife pestering her husband to stop watching the game.
There must be a demand for the service because the website says they have over three million members. That's three million people willing to pay money to find someone other than their spouse.
No wonder CTV didn't want any part of it. It's borderline prostitution on a huge scale.
The ad itself was tame. A man and his wife are out at a restaurant for supper. He's being an oaf, checking out other women, burping, picking his teeth and implying she'll get fat if she eats dessert. When he gets up to go to the bathroom she makes eye contact with a handsome man across the room and realizes there are wonderful opportunities out there for her.
It would be a good fit for any other dating site, if the couple wasn't married and it didn't promote infidelity.
Divorce rates are high enough as it is. We don't need television commercials promoting a service that could lead to more.
No where in the wedding vows I've heard did the couples promise to love, honour and cherish with the possibility of a discreet encounter with a stranger arranged online.
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