FIRST ON FOX— Controversial online dating service Ashley Madison, long known for catering to married people with the slogan “Life is short. Have an affair,” is ditching its focus on infidelity and adultery as part of a major rebrand.
Ashley Madison has been the premier dating site for married people looking to cheat for over 20 years, and the scandalous strategy helped the company thrive despite objections to assisting people seeking extramarital affairs. But Ashley Madison has seen a stunning shift in recent years, and 57% of all new members are now actually single.
“What that told us is that people are coming to our site for a different reason, for discretion. And so, today, Ashley Madison is shedding its adulterous past and launching a new category of discreet dating,” Ashley Madison Chief Strategy Officer Paul Keable told Fox News Digital.
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The fundamental shift in Ashley Madison’s business model moves the platform away from “married dating” and will include the new tagline “Where Desire Meets Discretion.” Keable said the shift reflects the company’s changing membership, along with a cultural shift prioritizing discretion and privacy.
“We know people are looking for a range of intimate connections. And ultimately, we’ve lived the past 20-plus years in the social media era where everything we’ve done has been curated and placed online. And people are fatigued and tired. More than roughly 30% of online daters are feeling constant pressure to swipe and message, and they’re not getting the outcomes they want,” Keable said.
“Worse, they’re having to go back into the office and people who they’re not interested in are seeing their profiles on these traditional dating apps and they feel as though it’s not the experience they’re looking for. So, people are now coming to Ashley Madison to connect with people for the same reasons, but ultimately, we at Ashley Madison are not going to ask you about whether you’re married or not,” he continued. “We’re going to ask very little about your information, other than why you value discretion and enable you to match with the people you want to match because your business ultimately is yours and it’s nobody else’s.”
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A recent Ashley Madison member survey found that 49% of respondents said they seek out additional relationships in addition to their primary one during more stressful times, indicating that the service will still enable adultery. The same survey found that 41% of total member respondents believe that having multiple partners who offer a variety of positive attributes would better help them through a difficult time.
Keable is well aware that Ashley Madison has attracted “a multitude of criticisms” over the years but has long maintained that people would cheat whether the service existed or not. Regardless, he says the rebrand isn’t being done for moral or ethical reasons, but rather to serve its customers.
“This shift that we’re taking is a realization that people want to continue to date, they want to connect, but under their own terms,” he said. “So, our choice really is less about what we desire. It’s our members telling us what they wanted and why they’re coming to Ashley Madison.”
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Keable said the shift to “discreet dating” is about delivering on expectations of members and creating a place where they can conduct their dating under their own management without everybody watching it.
“We’re launching a brand-new marketing campaign called Blessed Are the Discreet, which really celebrates those who are looking for intimate connections on their own terms… not out of guilt or shame, but simply out of an idea that ‘my business is mine.’ And until you’re lucky enough to get invited into it, you’re just going to have to wait on the outside,” Keable said.
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