$40 Mil Gay Dating Site

[tombarr]

This site, http://www.mancrunch.com, came to my attention via and article from CNN Money on it's controversial gay super bowl ad that got rejected by CBS as being "not within the Network's broadcast standards for Super Bowl Sunday"

What I found most interesting, aside from what obviously appears to be reported as gay discrimination, is the site was able to offer to pay cash for a $2.5 Million dollar ad slot because of a $40 Million dollar funding they had recently received from angel investors.

A $40 Million Dollar gay dating website just started in 2009?

Must be some serious coin in dating sites.

[dzinerbear]

I'm betting they never even intended to advertise during the Super Bowl. Look at the publicity they got by being rejected. I was thinking about this the other day in the shower. If I sent out a press release that says, "Butch Dixon offered Conan O'Brien $2 million to pose nude for their website." I'm betting I wouldn't ever have to pony up the cash and I'd get tons of primetime TV ad space on all those entertainment news shows.

I do like the Mancrunch logo. Never heard of them before now, so obviously whatever they did worked.

Michael

[Squirt]

I read their terms & conditions and don't like the fact that, at their discretion, they can read communications you send/receive and that they will share any of your information with whomever they like.

Their commercial is based on two guys making out yet you can only submit G rated profile pics. lame

Their contact info on the contact us page is in London, but their contact info on their terms & conditions page is in Canada.

Section 5 of their terms & conditions makes you wave any right to anything you upload to their service. They own the personal pics you upload, your text, emails and can use your image in any way they like via the perpetual worldwide license you grant them by signing up. no thanks

Only two results for their business name in all of Google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Man+Crunch+Inc.%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS253US253&ie=UTF-8), and the results are on the Man crunch site.

[Jasun]

That commercial is as lame and homophobic as the Mars Bar one from a few years ago.

It depicts gay men as..

- sexually aggressive, out of control freaks

- something that makes "normal" guys squirm with revulsion

- prone to making out at the drop of a hat in inappropriate places.

(and the guys in the commercial aren't attractive at all and they're not even making out)

[Jasun]

Their contact info on the contact us page is in London, but their contact info on their terms & conditions page is in Canada.


There's a city in Canada named London too.

[Squirt]

There's a city in Canada named London too.

Yeah their London address is actually in London UK:

Man Crunch Inc., Unit 10, 15-17 Caledonian Road, P.O. Box 306, London N1 9DX

and here's the Canadian address:

20 Eglinton Ave West, Suite 1200, Toronto, ON Canada M4R 1K8.

After a few minutes of research I've found they are also behind:

Establishedmen.com

arrangementseekers.com

cougarlife.com

Looks like Simone Dadoun-Cohen (http://establishedmen.com/bio) is behind the sites, pic attached.

We're obviously just another little hot button niche for them!

[rawTOP]

You can't even search by top/bottom/versatile. How can someone forget that detail on a gay site? For $40M you'd expect they'd think about that.

[Mickey]

just because they got $40M doesnt mean they know what they are doing or even how to work the "gay niche"

there are plenty of examples of investors blowing their money on stuff that made zero sence during the .com bubble..

[Jasun]

They don't have 40 milion bucks for this.

They made a crappy commercial they knew would get rejected and they decided to use the gay response as their ad campaign.

[BBD]

Nice way to get some free traffic.
Looks like it worked
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/http%3A%2F%2Fmancrunch.com?p=tgraph&r=home_home

Nothing about a 200k alexa ranking = $40m
hehe

[Squirt]

Shit you'd think at least one person who posted this info on their blogs, and elsewhere, would give credit to this post WTF

At least the guy here (http://blog.ctnews.com/evans/2010/01/31/the-man-crunch-cbs-hoax-or-how-a-former-stripper-bamboozled-the-worlds-media-to-promote-a-website/) didn't just copy the info I found and post it on his blog, he took the info and dug deeper into the people behind the sites, it's a good read. :cool:



Yeah their London address is actually in London UK:

Man Crunch Inc., Unit 10, 15-17 Caledonian Road, P.O. Box 306, London N1 9DX

and here's the Canadian address:

20 Eglinton Ave West, Suite 1200, Toronto, ON Canada M4R 1K8.

After a few minutes of research I've found they are also behind:

Establishedmen.com

arrangementseekers.com

cougarlife.com

Looks like Simone Dadoun-Cohen (http://establishedmen.com/bio) is behind the sites, pic attached.

We're obviously just another little hot button niche for them!

[Titanmen]

They don't have 40 milion bucks for this.

They made a crappy commercial they knew would get rejected and they decided to use the gay response as their ad campaign.

Bingo! It was just a big marketing ploy, they were never going to actually buy an ad!

[Mark Wolff]

$40 million dollar angel investor. Haha This whole thing is a publicity stunt. Says Mrs Cohen has a reality TV show in the works. That tells you everything you need to know about her, right there.
It's amazing these people think they can pull it off. They will get some exposure to the site for sure, however i doubt it will lead to anything. A quick blip in traffic then nothing!

[bboy121]

The dating site world is full of frauds and people who lie about traffic numbers (and for that matter investments from angel investors). And yes, I agree with others here who have stated that this was all just a publicity stunt.

[DSWeb]

The URL now redirects you to Adultfriendfinder. Lol!