AshleyMadison.com Snubbed by Toronto Transit

As part of a $250,000 advertising campaign, Ashley Madison wanted to wrap ads on 6 street cars in Toronto, Canada. The ads read "Life is Short, Have an Affair AshleyMadison.com". The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) rejected the ads last Friday, due to the ads violating TTC advertising standards.

The Ashley Madison CEO, Noel Biderman, disagrees with the TTC committee because the ads conform with Canadian laws. He further states that the TTC shouldn't be making morality judgments, they are in business to run transit lines. This also comes at a time when the TTC is in the red financially and, will be hiking user fees in the near future to hopefully cover losses.

I don't think the National Media has caught on to the real Ashley Madison's advertising campaign. Ashley Madison makes their ads just racy enough that they know most established media companies will reject them. They then let it be known that their ads were rejected, and the rest of the media reports on it. This is FREE advertising for them. I counted no less than 3 Toronto newspaper articles on the topic of the Ashley Madison TTC Ads being rejected, plus several mentions on TV during the news hour and discussions on talk radio.

This is a publicity stunt by Ashley Madison and it has become a pattern for them. We saw it earlier this year when a Canadian TV Network (CTV) rejected an Ashley Madison commercial that would have aired during the Super Bowl (see Story). Another example of this pattern is when they offered Tiger Woods $5 Million for an endorsement deal (see Story).