Manhandled: The
gay Super Bowl ad ado
Male dating site says CBS hasn't been straightforward
By Diego Vasquez
Feb 2, 2010
It's a tactic that GoDaddy has exploited ad nauseam: Submit a controversial Super Bowl ad to censors, in hopes the ad will be rejected and gain a huge amount of free publicity. But gay dating site ManCrunch.com insists that was not its strategy heading up to Sunday's Super Bowl. The newly launched company says it simply wanted a high-profile presence in the big game with an ad that showed two seemingly platonic male friends engaging in an impromptu makeout session. After two weeks spent reviewing the ad, CBS rejected it on Friday, setting off a firestorm of protests from gay rights groups including GLAAD. "CBS has a problem when they do something like this at the same time as they allow an anti-gay group like Focus on the Family to place ads during the Super Bowl," said a statement from GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios, referring to the equally controversial anti-abortion Tim Tebow ad that has been approved. CBS declined to comment on specifics of its ManCrunch decision, telling Media Life, "After reviewing the ad – which is entirely commercial in nature – our standards and practices department decided not to accept this particular spot." Still, with the amount of publicity around this reject, ManCrunch may have gotten its money's worth without giving CBS a dime. Bridge and Tunnel Communications partner Dominic Friesen, who helped launch and brand ManCrunch, talks to Media Life about the controversy, the ad and why he says the network has been unfair.
Why did you decide to advertise in the Super Bowl?
Well, essentially, when we were putting together our overall marketing strategy, we were launching in January so we thought, what could we tie in with?
We launched about two weeks ago and said hey, the Super Bowl has 90 million viewers, mainly men, so it just made sense. The Super Bowl ad was the cornerstone of our launch, so this has caused us to readjust.
How did you come up with the creative for the ad? Did you feel it was important to depict the two men actually engaging in a kiss rather than just suggestive behavior?
In all honesty, most people’s response is the ad is really harmless. A lot of dating site ads are pretty bland. We honestly had no clue they would react this way. We actually kept it really toned down. We tried to keep it respectful, but CBS didn’t recognize those efforts.
Did you think the ad really had a shot at getting past CBS censors?
The thing is, we knew there’d be a problem if there was a man-on-man kiss, but you don’t see it, it’s more suggested. So we thought it would get through.
We submitted the ad two weeks ago and typically there’s an immediate turnaround. After two weeks we were like, why are we not getting any feedback? Then we heard there was no space left for ads, but we were hearing otherwise elsewhere. They were telling us the whole time that there was no space available, but there absolutely was.
What did the network tell you in rejecting the ad? Did they offer any suggestions for tweaking it in a way that could get it on the air?
Actually, after the crazy public outcry, we finally got a rejection letter midday on Friday. We want an ad on the air. And we will work with them. If CBS comes back and says they have recommendations for the ad, that’s not even a consideration with us.
Now it’s kind of a waiting game with them. They have a lot of pressure because a lot of advocacy groups are pressuring them. It’s a pattern with CBS, and it’s something that really needs to be addressed.
Are you actively planning any sort of protest to the decision? Have you heard from GLBT groups planning protests?
I have a list. GLAAD, and then there are several other major advocacy groups that are supporting the cause. We are petitioning the network./ A petition went up on ManCrunch.com today.
Do you think the network is engaging in double standards at all when Focus on the Family, an advocacy group airing an anti-abortion ad, will be able to air its views during the game?
Absolutely.
Once again, this was such a shock. We were completely caught off guard. It’s a complete double standard.
A lot of our focus is the anti-gay bias during the whole process. They were outright lying to us, discriminating and using stall tactics. The latest thing on Thursday was CBS was saying we didn’t have credit approval for the ad, but when we submitted the ad we guaranteed $2.6 million in cash.
[CBS says it send ManCrunch a note reading in part: "Moreover, our Sales Department has had difficulty verifying your organization's credit status. Should you wish to explore future buys on the CBS Television Network, the credit issue will have to be clarified.]
Have you seen traffic to the site rise because of all the publicity?
Yes it has. We’ve had tens of thousands of new subscribers, about 30,000 in the past five days. We’re very thankful that we’re generating interest for the service, but unfortunately it came out of these circumstances.
The ad has been posted online, and you've gotten a huge amount of publicity over it. Do you still want the ad to run in the game? You've arguably gotten the same mileage out of this that you'd get for actually paying millions for the ad.
That was the original goal. We thought it would end up on the air. We spent $100,000 to produce the ad, it was a huge investment.
I think we’re bringing knowledge to a serious problem. Not just us, but other groups have had the same discrimination with the network. If this situation helps bring more awareness to the need for additional change for discrimination against the gay community, we’re very grateful for that.
What lesson have you learned from all of this?
I think the lesson learned, quite honestly, is we were naïve going into this.
When we were dealing with the network for two weeks, we took them at their word. We thought it took that long to get approval, but it doesn’t. The lesson we learned is to understand the process better. This could have been addressed early on. We didn’t want to call CBS out in public, but it’s come to that. We were really naïve about their discriminatory actions.
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