Focus On The Rainbow

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.