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TTC rejects streetcar ad promoting infidelity
The Toronto Transit Commission has rejected an ad for AshleyMadison.com,an online dating company specializing in extramarital affairs. Theeye-catching wraparound streetcar ad, with oversized white print on amauve background, notes “Life is short. Have an affair.” It directsviewers to the company's website, which guarantees “an affair toremember” in three months or your $249 back.
That just doesn't jive with taste or community standards criteriafor public transit ads, the TTC's advertising committee decided Friday.
“What individuals choose to do is what individuals choose to do, butas far as the TTC is concerned, I am never going to support that wepromote infidelity,” said councillor and committee member Suzan Hall.
TTC staff referred the ad to the committee Thursday, which iscustomary practice for anything they think might be problematic. SinceAshleyMadison.com sent out press releases announcing the ad Thursday,“e-mails are coming in hot and heavy” in response, Ms. Hall said – allof them opposed to the ads.
“There hasn't been a single person e-mailing in to say they're in support of this.”
But AshleyMadison.com CEO Noel Biderman says the Toronto-basedcompany, which boasts more than five million members on its site, isjust trying to promote its brand.
“I think there's these notions out there that people think ofinfidelity as quote-unquote ‘wrong,' as quote-unquote ‘immoral,' ” hesaid. “In this day and age and, in this era, creating those moralityjudgments is not equivalent to a tolerant society.”
On Friday, in the face of growing certainty his ad would berejected, he offered to “sweeten the pot” by subsidizing all riders onthe “Affair Line” – paying 50 cents of what will be a $3 cash fare comeJan. 3.
But city staff say that doesn't change anything, as the decision is based on ad content rather than revenue.
In many ways this is déjà vu for AshleyMadison.com: The company hadits Super Bowl ads pulled, and a billboard in New York City's TimesSquare was removed after a hotelier threatened to burn it downotherwise.
But Mr. Biderman said they'd hoped this time it would be different:E-mails apparently from CBS Outdoor, the company that handles all TTCadvertising, had told AshleyMadison.com as late as Thursday the ad hadbeen approved by the city's advertising review committee.
CBS Outdoor declined to comment Friday.
This isn't the first time TTC advertising has come under fire:Earlier this year, the transit commission required Virgin Radio to pullads depicting a radio preparing to commit suicide by jumping ontosubway tracks; in April, atheist bus ads stating, “There is probably noGod. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” were ultimately allowed tostay after coming under fire from religious groups.
TTC advertising committee chair Anthony Peruzza said he'd be willingto consider allowing AshleyMadison.com to advertise on transit vehiclesif the company comes forward with something less ostentatious.
“If it were something that wasn't as in-your-face, wasn't asblatant, wasn't as direct, I don't know maybe used different imaging,then who knows?”
Although jaded Torontonians don't bat an eye when confronted withsweat-bathed Calvin Klein models or Virgin Mobile users making out withangels, University of Toronto sociologist Adam Green says, the furorsurrounding the AshleyMadison.com ads get to the heart of society'scontinued anxieties around marriage and fidelity.
“It's a violation of the institution of marriage,” he said, addingthat the number of people who think infidelity is wrong has actuallyincreased significantly in the past 20 years.
“[AshleyMadison.com ads] elicit a lot of anxiety in people, and outrage, you know – ‘Have we just gone too far?' ”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/ttc-rejects-streetcar-ad-promoting-infidelity/article1396111/ |
2009/12/12 06:11
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