TTC rejects Ashley Madison ads, despite fare-subsidy offer

The TTC has rejected a bid by the Ashley Madison Agency, a website that promotes adultery, to wrap a streetcar with ads promoting the controversial site, along with the slogan, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

The commission’s advertising review committee, comprising six city councillors, made the decision this afternoon after being made aware of the potential ad campaign by the TTC’s ad agency, CBS Outdoor.

“This is an issue about community standards,” said Councillor Joe Mihevc, a TTC commissioner. “We are, at the end of the day, a public body and the citizens of Toronto own the TTC. In this case, the reason why I voted not to accept the ads was because they violate a basic community standard around cheating.”

“When it’s a core fundamental value around cheating and lying, we’re not going to let those kind of ads go on.”

Yesterday the TTC revealed it was considering running the ads on one streetcar, a proposition that evoked criticism from pro-family organizations.

“People are generally outraged by that type of a lifestyle and to advertise it in ushc a public fashion, in my opinion, is wrong, said Dave Quist, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

Earlier today, Noel Biderman, CEO of Ashley Madison, offered to drop the fare by 50 cents for any rides taken on a streetcar with ads for his company.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said such a proposition was impossible, given that TTC fares are policy decisions.

Ashley Madison was launched in 2002 by Toronto entrepreneur Darren Morgenstern, and became the first website to connect would-be cheaters.

In 2007, as membership climbed, Morgenstern sold his site to Avid Life Media, a Toronto company that owns and operates several other websites devoted to sexual encounters between adults, including Eroticy.com, CougarLife.com, and EstablishedMen.com.

Ashley Madison now boasts more than 4.8 million members.

The controversy it has stirred up has garnered coverage on Canadian and American television shows, including Good Morning America, Larry King Live and The Ellen Degeneres Show. After Tiger Woods’s extramarital activities became public, TMZ.com reported that Ashley Madison offered Woods $5-million for "advertisement, endorsement, sale and promotion" of the website.

But so far, the site hasn’t had much luck in its bids to advertise on TV and radio. Earlier this year, CTV rejected an Ashley Madison commercial that would have run during the Super Bowl.

This isn’t the first time the TTC has courted controversy surrounding the kinds of ads it chooses to run. In April, the Commission was forced to pull several "suicide" ads that depicted a kitchen radio about to jump off a TTC subway platform because of an apparent poor selection of music and programs. The ads, for Virgin Radio, were accompanied by the words, "Give your radio a reason to live."