ManCrunch.com Already Benefitting from Rejected Ad

On Super Bowl Sunday, ninety-million men will tune in to watch perhaps the biggest moment in annual American sports broadcasts. None of them will see ManCrunch.com's new ad, though.

And yet, maybe CBS's decision not to air the controversial advertisement has already done the Toronto-based website more good than a thirty-second time slot during the game ever could have.

According to web traffic statistics courtesy of Alexa.com, the percentage of global Internet users who have visited ManCrunch spiked from 0.0006 at the start of this month to 0.013 as of Sunday.

The site's surge in popularity is just another example of a common theme in American media. When an underdog gets into a fight with the higher-ups, media attention flocks to the scene. Conan O'Brien demonstrated this phenomenon in his "late night war" with NBC and now ManCrunch.com is doing the same with CBS. Even if ManCrunch doesn't make off with a severance check for $40 million, CBS's refusal to air the commercial certainly means that a whole lot of people will see it.

Some online media reports have gone as far as to say that ManCrunch.com never had any intention of actually running the ad at all. Instead, the website submitted a commercial it knew would be rejected for the sake of publicity.

The site's spokesperson maintains that ManCrunch submitted a credit check to prove it could and would purchase the ad space.