By J. DeVoy
I previously wrote about Ashley Madison‘s growth in Toronto, which alone contributes more than 12,000 women married for less than three years to the site’s total membership. Now it has thrown down an undisclosed sum to sponsor the 2011 AVN Awards Show. The AVN awards show, viewed by more than two million households during its 2010 broadcast on Showtime, is serious business within the adult entertainment industry.
Ashley Madison’s unique selling proposition is pairing married men with married women, counting on mutually assured destruction to do the rest. Skeptics attribute its purported growth to “bot” populations – script-generated profiles that contact and reply to members – or other slight of hand. Noel Biderman, Ashley Madison’s CEO, explains the site’s success as a function of marketing, and this sponsorship goes to further show the service’s vitality. As “…a former sports attorney who was inspired to create the site in 2001 after reading a research report that 30 percent of the people who visit singles dating sites are not single at all,” he seems to have nailed the target audience.
