Ashley Madison Draws Wrath

The Ashley Madison tanker truck drove through Philadelphia earlier this week and gained significant coverage on the local news channels.  Not surprisingly, most of the people interviewed were not happy with the tanker being in the City of Brotherly Love and, in fact, city officials asked the driver to move the truck from a prominent downtown location.

Many critics of Ashley Madison, which runs a prominent web affiliate program, believe that the company is tearing apart families by encouraging affairs, but is that really true?  Does alcohol advertising encourage alcoholism?  Do casinos encourage gambling problems? 

I believe the answer to all of these questions is a resounding “yes.”  And, I guess all of them have dealt with this sort of publicity from time to time.

But, for Ashley Madison, it is precisely this publicity that makes the brand go.  It has 3.6 million members and you can bet many of them are thanks to the enormous free publicity that the site gets thanks to shows like The View and CNN (watch videos here).

Owner Noel Biderman is roundly criticized by sites like The View, but isn’t The View doing exactly the same thing?  By promoting Biderman’s business, you can bet he picked up an additional 100,000 or so memberships to help his business thrive.  You can’t buy that kind of advertising such as the 7 minute interview he did with The View. 

Moreover, Biderman is criticized for being profit motivated on the site.  The View has the same profit motivation.  If it gets great ratings, it sells more advertising.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 6:33 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.