Have a seat by the campfire boys and girls as I tell you a tale about how one lovely lady and her co-horts in Canada took just about every news organization and a multitude of websites and blogs in the US and around the world for a ride to promote a “dating website” by taking advantage of the outrage over CBS Television accepting an ad from Focus On The Family for the Super Bowl.
It all started this past Thursday, January 28 when FOX News posted this story on their website written by Hollie McKay, which reads in part, After days of deliberations on whether to run a controversial Super Bowl ad from gay dating site ManCrunch.com, CBS has not yet reached a decision.
For those who may not have been following this great “fiasco of journalism”, the story refers to a website called Man Crunch, “Where Many Many Many Men Come Out to Play”, and how the owners of the website were trying to buy ad time from CBS for the Super Bowl.
Well boys and girls, as they say about a YouTube video, the story went viral. New articles with links to the Fox News story started popping up the same day on mainstream websites such as The Huffington Post, as well as LGBT blogs and websites, among the first was JMG.
Now, what a great many of the postings on blogs and websites have in common aside to a reference to the Fox News story, CBS and Man Crunch, is the “contradiction” by CBS to accept an ad from Focus On The Family, an organization which among other things is anti-gay, and as will end up happening on the 29th, CBS rejecting the ad from Man Crunch.
On Friday the 29th, the story hit, via a tweet from CNBC’s Darren Rovellno, that CBS would not accept the Man Crunch ad and again that story went viral too, this time with the likes of the NY Daily News, the New York Post, CNN and even later Friday evening on the CBS News website, which uses a source for their story, about their own company mind you, The Hollywood Reporter.
Before we break out the marshmallows for roasting and hearing the second part to our tale, I must tell you this.
When this writer first starting coming across the story on Thursday and reading the content of the FOX News article, the built in journalist and former CBS employee antenna went up and I figured something was afoot and not correct, which is why until this posting, there has been no mention of CBS/Man Crunch.
What led me to that observation if you will, and decided not to join the fray of the many, was the information regarding CBS and Man Crunch, the information of which was provided by Man Crunch. Every time “a CBS rep” was written it was done so with no name. Also in some of the articles there was an unsettling contradiction in what CBS was purported to be saying and Man Crunch’s statements and offering of information.
Even the “statement from CBS” as to why the ad would not be accepted was information provided by Man Crunch and again with no names of CBS spokesman or representatives. So needless to say the whole thing didn’t sit right and I opted not to add this blog to the ever growing media taking this all in.
Now you can break out the marshmallows, here’s the second part.
Late Saturday afternoon, January 30, I was doing my ”trip around the block” checking websites/blogs and JMG had another posting about Man Crunch, this one from Friday, and in the comments I noticed one from Jason D, in which he references to a website GayDailyHot (NOT SFW due to gay oriented ads) and a posting which says that Man Crunch is yet another site created by Simone Dadoun-Cohen, the very lovely young lady first mentioned at the beginning of this posting.
GayDailyHot wrote in part, Mancrunch isn’t a LGBT-owned business and it isn’t a “gay dating site” at all.. it’s just the “gay niche” site made by a clueless straight company for publicity.
It appears to be from the same gold-digging skank who brought you Establishedmen, ArrangementSeekers.com and Cougar Life. Those are owned by Simone Dadoun-Cohen, and this is probably just another way for her to manipulate people for money.
This company seems to be just using the gay community’s political strength for some cash. It looks like they made a “gay” commercial they knew would be rejected so the gay community would get angry and generate a lot of free press for them.
So with that in mind, I decided to have a good old fashion look-see. Join me and make up your own mind.
Established Men media contact .. Man Crunch media contact … same phone number, and also look and see how the websites are similar, here and here, on the same, how do the computer geeks call it, framework, and how the FAQ’s and answers are pretty much the same, here and here.
And there you are boys and girls, one smart classy cookie and co-horts up in Canada, who took advantage of the outrage of CBS selling ad time to Focus On The Family. Just who is Simone Dadoun-Cohen ?
ABC News’ Nightline once did a story on her and her website in an article on May 18, 2009 (which the video below is about) and was also mentioned May 13, 2009 in reference to dating sites in an article in the “money section” at the ABC News website, titled, Sugar Daddy Sites Attract Sexual Blackmailers
Have a look at the video to meet the former stripper who has bamboozled CBS plus a host of others around the world, using Focus On The Family, it’s anti-gay sentiment and the outrage of CBS accepting a “pro-life ad” from the group.
Dadoun-Cohen and co-horts have used that hot-button news story to promote a “gay dating service” website with no cost to her or her company while a great many well intentioned people found fault with CBS for creating a double standard in accepting an ad from Focus On The Family and not an ad from a gay advertiser. An ad which most likely wouldn’t have been accepted based on it’s amateurish production alone.
As PT Barnum was purported to have said, “there’s a sucker born every minute“, it would seem Simone Dadoun-Cohen and co-horts have certainly proved that in this little farce of using the passionate feelings against CBS within the LGBT community, and LGBT blog & website publishers and authors/writers, for their own profit, promotion and exploitation, where on one website male customers pay $49 monthly, plus additional fees for extra frills such as sending virtual gifts to, in the words of the website, a “perfect princess.” as was reported in an article back in June of 2009 at the Toronto Sun. Dadoun-Cohen was a York University student earning between $800 and $2,000 a night stripping at a Toronto-based gentleman’s club, a world that completely contrasts her life now as a cushy suburbanite, married with three young children.
I do believe there are a great many lessons to be learned, the least of which for reporters, if it looks like a cow-pie, smells like a cow-pie, it most likely is a cow-pie and best not to step into it.
I learned that lesson the hard way a very long time ago on my great-grandfather’s farm.
The CBS Program Practices Commercial Clearance Report
Above is a link which shows the clearance report sent to Man Crunch and “signed” by Kristin Bartlett, editor, CBS Program Practices.
The report reads in part, CBS Standards and Practices has reviewed your proposed Super Bowl ad and concluded that the creative is not within the Network’s Broadcast Standards for Super Bowl Sunday. Moreover, our Sales Department has had difficulty verifying your organization’s credit status.
This writer is confident the document is authentic (and not another volley of bamboozlement) as it is similar to one which we used at the CBS Radio Group in Hartford, CT when I worked there in the capacity of national advertising continuity manager.
Mike Bawden of the website Brand Central Station left a comment on this posting today (Monday 2/1/10) in which he also feels the whole Man Crunch/CBS debacle is a sham.
Bawden conducted an interview with a representative of Man Crunch, Dominic Friesen, and posted the interview in its entirety this past Friday January 29. You can read the interview here.
Bawden finished his piece by writing, After all, the outrage we should feel here isn’t about gay dating it’s about the manipulation of an all-to-willing media and people who would rather believe in grand conspiracies and imagined enemies than take the time to think about the messages they’re being fed and how realistic or reasonable they are.
Brand Central Station is a marketing consulting business and website. Bawden wrote a followup piece late today.
In the online Tuesday edition of the Los Angeles Times, Dan Neil gives his take on the bamboozlement of the media.
That boys and girls is the final mention on this blog of Man Crunch, et al. Time to put the campfire out and put this story to bed.
[...] this article: The Man Crunch CBS Hoax or How A Former Stripper Bamboozled The … Posted in mancrunch | Tags: a-website-called, and-how, crunch, may-not, story, the-owners, [...]
Comment by The Man Crunch CBS Hoax or How A Former Stripper Bamboozled The … | Daily Hot Topic — January 31st, 2010 @ 7:31 am
[...] this story is about to get — finally! — a whole lot more interesting. Our smart friend Lyndon Evans clearly had a light work load this week because he did some serious digging about the ManCrunch [...]
Comment by TRANSRACIAL » DUPED: ManCrunch Super Bowl Ad is Sexy Stripper’s Hype Hoax — January 31st, 2010 @ 10:05 am
[...] 31, 2010 by Gay Agenda News Team Contributed by: Lyndon Evans Have a seat by the campfire boys and girls as I tell you a tale about how one lovely lady and her [...]
Comment by How ManCrunch.com Bamboozled the Media : Gay News from Gay Agenda – GayAgenda.com — January 31st, 2010 @ 11:19 am
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by SteamyDate: The Man Crunch CBS Hoax or How A Former Stripper Bamboozled The … http://bit.ly/bG3t17...
Comment by uberVU - social comments — January 31st, 2010 @ 9:11 pm
Maybe, maybe not. Could be a semi-legit business, and a darn good publicity ploy (isn’t that the fabled goal of all ad-men?), but there remains a serious issue about the apparently dishonest anti-abortion ad (they weren’t even legal where the woman says she was offered on by a hospital at the time) running, and another service being denied. Why, one might ask. A hoax? Maybe, maybe not. Hoaxes are often ways to send political messages. The ad itself, real or not, is really harmless and inoffensive. But keep digging. The truth will set us all free one way or another. Cheers.
Comment by Tom Prospero — January 31st, 2010 @ 10:53 pm
Thanks for this article. Very insightful.
I was also contacted by Mancrunch’s PR firm on Thursday and expressed my doubts right off. After receiving a response to a series of questions posed to Mancrunch’s spokesman, Dominic Friesen, I decided the whole thing is just a big stunt.
Your article has helped fill in some of the missing pieces.
Here are links to my posts on this subject:
http://www.brandcentralstation.com/archives/2264
http://www.brandcentralstation.com/archives/2274
I’ll be linking to yours this afternoon when I update my blog as well.
I really detest this kind of manufactured controversy and am grateful for your investigation into this matter.
Thanks again,
Mike Bawden
Brand Central Station
Comment by Mike Bawden — February 1st, 2010 @ 9:57 am
I first saw this link on a political board and my first thought was, “this is BS”. It doesn’t take “investigative journalism” to smell BS. Just a little critical thinking, which I might add, is completely lacking here in the U.S.
Comment by Thomas Jefferson — February 1st, 2010 @ 4:37 pm
[...] find out what was really going on. Kudo’s to Lyndon Evans for writing a blog post that provides a fairly concise summary of the whole affair. A second post debunking the Mancrunch controversy, written by Alex Blaze, provides even more [...]
Comment by Mancrunch’s publicity stunt gets outed. » Brand Central Station — February 2nd, 2010 @ 12:14 am
I was contacted for a possible interview with ManCrunch.com executive, but it smelled funny. I usually just ignore bad pitches but just to see what happened, I turned it down in writing and stated that I couldn’t do it as I was negotiating sponsorship of my site with a dating service and didn’t want to jeopardize that. They responded “no problem.”
I’m glad you’ve confirmed my suspicions.
Comment by Marc Felion — February 2nd, 2010 @ 2:08 am
While i applaud your attempt at journalism, to say that you piece is off the mark is an understatement. Yes, Simone has acted as a spokeswoman for one of our services – Establishedmen.com, as others have for our other niche dating services (i.e. Claudia Opdenkelder for Cougarlife.com) does NOT some how equate to Mancrunch being anything other than a valid part of the Avid family…we operate niche dating services of various kinds across America and Mancrunch is our newest offering. Next time, try completing your journalistic research before your write…
Noel Biderman, LL.B.
President
Avid Life Media Inc.
Comment by Noel Biderman — February 2nd, 2010 @ 7:19 am
A very interesting article. Too bad you didn’t have an editor look it over for spelling/grammar. In paragraph 9, “lead” should be “led,” which is the past tense of the verb “to lead.” In paragraph 12, the word “eluded” should have been “alluded,” which means something you referred to earlier. “Eluded” means that something managed to escape you – in this instance, good English usage. But again, a very interesting article.
Comment by muzyqman — February 2nd, 2010 @ 10:41 am
Does the owner of Mancrunch have to be GLBT owned to make them more creditable? The hetero community has made money off of gays for years and years now. Does anyone remember straight bars that host and advertise a weekly ‘gay night’? Just because some homos did not own the website doesn’t mean it was OK for CBS to turn down the ad. BTW, I watched the ad. while I didn’t feel it was a great ad, it certainly was not amatuerish as it has been suggested.
Comment by Glenn Sieverson — February 3rd, 2010 @ 5:59 pm
Sort of stumbled on this post early in the morning; and it seems to me; although I’m not an American, that it’s good bad advertising.
Anyway called a few people to action no doubt.
Cheers
Beermatman
Comment by Beermatman — July 25th, 2010 @ 12:29 am
Whether you’re looking at Mancrunch, EstablishedMen, or a site like http://executivedatingservices.net/ it’s all “Dating in the Dark”… From a marketing perspective this is a great case study. Thanks for the lesson.
Comment by Dating in the Dark Bill — August 1st, 2010 @ 11:53 pm
I’m not sure if I would agree with this article… I think what is all about is : Politics.
But this is just MY point of view
Comment by kamal — August 2nd, 2010 @ 10:45 am
Finding a way to capitalize on the current trends and news stories is just good business from a marketing stand point. All things aside there are probably a lot of people who wished they would of thought of it.
Comment by Sam "Jamorama" — August 11th, 2010 @ 3:02 pm
There is no way this relationship can last! Kyle says clearly it to the interviewer “It bothers me to think she is a gold digger!” He wants the physical, she wants the bucks!
What did the sex therapist say? “Long term relationship has nothing to do with it as it’s really prostitution.”
It may last another six months if she’s lucky!
Comment by Jon Saqarra — August 11th, 2010 @ 5:49 pm
Nrg boys a social networking site in UK for gays is all set to make it’s marks in United Kingdom. This site will allow user to express oneself with a avatar virutally. Gays, Bi and Curious lads can upload their Profile, photos, videos, Blogs, news on their home page.
Comment by NRG Boys — August 13th, 2010 @ 2:28 am
It’s part of their advertising strategy. Business owners will try everything to achieve full blown advertisement. And well, we can’t take away the fact that the website achieved their plan – to be known.
Comment by Ann from MLM System — August 14th, 2010 @ 1:53 am
It’s amazing what people will do to get traffic to their website. For many sites, huge surges of traffic also means huge $$$, depending on their monetisation strategy.
I think that ManCrunch.com should have known that CBS will delay in their decision to flight the ad due to other “sensitivities”, and used this to gain viral advertising publisity.
CBS had to satisfy themselves that the content of ManCrunch.com’s ad would not be offensive to the greater society.
Just my two cents…
Comment by Online Dating SA — August 23rd, 2010 @ 4:57 am
Its really a nice idea to start a dating website to become a billionaire within a short period of time. Love is with people of all age so i dont think there will be any sort of age trouble. It also doesn’t need any sort of marketing because dating is the keyword often searched by many in google.
Thanks
Collin Paul
Comment by adventure singles — August 27th, 2010 @ 6:58 am
‘thanks for the awesome blog post! subscribed! will surely vist this blog again’
Comment by Desi girls — August 27th, 2010 @ 9:20 am
LOL XD I hadn’t heard about this story at all. Very unethical what this person did but I can’t help but be a little impressed about the ploy she used to get some advertising for her supposed “business.”
She might be a con artist “skank” but she’s definitely no dummy lol :p
Comment by acne breakouts — August 28th, 2010 @ 4:54 am
I remember hearing about this right after the Superbowl, but I never heard the whole story until now. That is is crazy and shows that its still possible to use special interest groups for selfish purposes. The fact that the group was so fragmented in the online space made it possible for the residual results from that scam to continuing providing links to their website for months after wards. Great read, thanks for sharing.
Comment by Black Online Dating — August 29th, 2010 @ 5:51 pm