Brand Central Station

Echoing around the media blogosphere today (at over 1,700 5,000 18,000 posts and counting) has been the news that CBS Television is “considering” a television spot from a reputed dating site for homosexuals called Mancrunch.  And when we say “considering” we take that to mean they’ve received the commercial and, presumably, an order to air it in the Super Bowl for a couple million bucks – but the spot is going through a review by someone in the the Broadcast Standards & Approvals department of the network.

In the meantime, Mancrunch has turned on the publicity machine – generating maximum buzz by getting the red meat journalists at FOX News to bite on the story and proclaim that CBS is considering airing the gay dating site ad during the Super Bowl.   That, in turn, has lead to posts on the Huffington Post, LA Times and several other news sites to continue giving the story gravitas.

This is all great for Mancrunch and, I suspect, of very little consequence to CBS.  And why is that, you might ask …

… because as of this point in time, none of this “news” is confirmed.

This may, in fact, be much ado about nothing.  And that’s just what Mancrunch and other marketers who trade in controversy (like GoDaddy.com, for example) want.  You see, the controversy is much more affordable than the actual television time.  And thanks to the Internet, the residual effects of all the bloviating by pundits, bloggers and the rest will create thousands of links to Mancruch, lifting it above competing sites going for the same audience.

It’s brilliant, really.  And the PR firm involved in the kerfuffle, PR Media Now, should be congratulated.

So, why am I not biting on the story?  Why am I not outraged one way or another?  Why am I such a freakin’ cynic and suspicious of this entire thing?

For starters, I don’t have a political axe to grind or ox to gore.  I’m not in the target market.  But I am interested in advertising and marketing.  And there are plenty of things about this effort that don’t sit right with me and make me think that this whole controversy is manufactured.

First off, take a look at the spot.  It’s on YouTube and has less than 1,000 views which tells me that for all the web traffic the story is getting (there are over 70 comments on the FOX News story alone), no one is taking time to actually watch the television spot.  If you do, you’ll see some things that don’t make sense.  For example, the production values of the spot are really low.  Not “Calvin-Klein-porn-shoot-in-the-basement” low (on purpose), I mean this looks like it was produced by Wayne Campbell and Garth to run on Aurora Cable Public Access.

Further to that, is the language in the spot.  One character tells the other one he “sucks.”  What copywriter would write that and think that would pass by anyone?  Really?

The obligatory make-out scene which, undoubtedly raises the hackles of conservative viewers is, at best, staged.  It looks like two straight guys acting like they’re making out but not letting anyone actually see them make contact with one another.  It’s arbitrary and poorly acted … at best.

And finally, this is an ad for a web site – a web-based dating service – and the URL of the site isn’t shown in the ad.  Huh?

If this ad isn’t fake (as, I assume the controversy is), Mancrunch would be fortunate to have CBS reject the spot so they could hire a real ad agency to produce something that works for them and gives interested consumers the information they need to sign-up and use their service.

UPDATE 01/28/2010 @5:50pm (CST) – It’s now been four hours since I was first contacted by Mancrunch’s PR firm.  I expressed my skepticism the first time but the PR folks were responsive and reassuring that this whole thing was legit.  They offered to put me in touch with a spokesperson from Mancrunch, but I still haven’t received a call.  I understand that.  I would assume that they are busy dealing with bloggers who are convinced this controversy is legit and covering it thusly.  Mancrunch’s PR firm did give me the name of someone they said worked in CBS’s Broadcast Standards & Approvals Department and I’ve left a message on her voicemail as well.

I’ll make this promise: I’ll update this post as I speak with people and as I learn more.  If it turns out the story is legit, I’ll be sure to say so.  If I get a call back from the network contact provided by Mancrunch, I’ll make note of that here as well.  I will continue to make a few calls and see what else I can confirm on my own.

But know this – if this all turns out to be a stunt, you saw it here first!  (Well, actually you saw it on the LA Times blog, AdRants and the Brand Central Station Facebook page first.)

UPDATE 01/29/2010 @ 2:28pm (CST) – Just received word from Mancrunch’s PR firm that CBS has rejected the spot (here’s a link to a .pdf of the rejection notice).  I wasn’t able to get a hold of anyone at CBS for comment yesterday and, quite frankly, have been too busy to try and reach someone today.  I did get a returned call from Mancrunch last night but was out of the office and unable to take the call.

Looking into it in more detail, it appears this news broke a couple hours earlier and is now starting to climb up the media status ladder with stories on USA Today’s site among others.  Most are citing this news breaking on CNBC – which, interestingly enough isn’t actually referencing a story but rather a tweet on Darren Rovell’s Twitter account.  It was enough, though, to legitimize this entire controversy as far as USA Today is concerned.

I’m still trying to figure out what Mancrunch is trying to do with all this “free” lift via controversy.  As a result, I’ve asked the Mancrunch folks to answer a few questions.  Those questions are:

1.) Prior to the decision from CBS there were already reports that the spot had been rejected – primarily from bloggers covering gay issues. Was this outcome expected?

2.) What do you think you could have done from a creative standpoint that would have forced CBS’s hand into accepting your commercial?

3.) Do you think a similar spot for a hetero equivelent (i.e. Fling.com, AshleyMadison.com or something like that) would have been accepted by CBS? After all, Mancrunch doesn’t look to be like Match.com or eHarmony – it’s about hooking up, right?

4.) What agency produced the ad? The concept and production values of the spot, quite frankly, don’t seem to be all that “out of the box” or expensive – why did it take the agency so long to produce your commercial for the largest advertising stage on the planet (the Super Bowl)?

5.) Why isn’t the URL for your web site included in the ad?

6.) You now have over 5,000 inbound links to Mancrunch as a result of the publicity surrounding this situation with CBS. While it would have been nice to spend the $2 million (or more) to run an ad in the Super Bowl, do you still consider this effort a successful launch?

7.) Do you intend on running any other television spots on network television this year? In your opinion, do you think the programming would influence the likelihood of a network to accept your creative (for example, would an ad produced for the Academy Awards be more likely to be accepted to run versus an ad produced for the Winter Olympics)?

We’ll see what they have to say.