Marketing

Tinder has launched a new ad campaign in India called You Up, aimed directly at young singles to show them the fun, adventurous side of dating apps.

The ad focuses on a young woman looking for exciting new experiences, not necessarily a relationship, and there’s a magical element to her journey. The ad opens with her matching with a man, and she reaches into the app screen to take his hand as they jump off a building and into a karaoke bar where they have a fun, flirtatious night.

The next scene shows her matching with a woman, where they are in a parking lot dancing and then take a drive together, a slower and more romantic experience. She matches with another man after this, where they take a swim in the ocean before she drops him at the train station - and before meeting her next date.

Dating app Bumble has launched a new series of videos catering to countries within the Asian-Pacific (APAC) market, specifically India, Singapore, and The Philippines, to lessen the stigma surrounding its dating app premise: that women make the first move.

APAC countries, especially India, are fast-growing markets for dating apps as younger daters opt for technology over traditional dating methods like matchmaking. However, approaches to dating and matchmaking vary greatly between countries according to Lucille McCart, communications director for Bumble APAC said in an interview with The Drum. For example, religion and religious customs are more important in Singapore and the Philippines compared to markets like Australia and New Zealand.

As a result, Bumble has launched new videos catering to specific markets. The videos for Singapore and the Philippines are called “It Starts With Hello,” designed to create more levels of comfort for women starting a chat over the app. “In Singapore, 87% of people surveyed believed that men should take the lead and only 7% said that this is what is expected of women. Things are slowly changing in this regard, and Bumble is here to advocate for further progress,” McCart told The Drum.

Dating app Plenty of Fish had a brand refresh on Monday, October 17th. The logo has been updated along with the design of their website and apps. The last brand update happened in September of 2019. The new look goes even more modern with less colors and minimalistic styling. Instead of blues and almost a florescent pink of the old look, the makeover contains several shades of pastel pinks along with black and white. The new design also incorporates some animation touches. For example, on the POF homepage the fish drawings actually move around.

It also looks like they have reverted back to calling the service by its full name "Plenty of Fish" again, instead of using the shorter version "POF". This reverses the original name switch which happened back in 2019.

With monthly downloads of the POF app falling since the last refresh, it looks like POF is hoping the new look (which is designed to appeal to younger adults) and a few other new features will hopefully turn things around.

Image: Bumble

Dating app Bumble will offer a real-life Bantr on its platform, the fictional dating app made famous on hit TV series Ted Lasso.

Starting October 13th and through the end of the year on Thursdays at 7pm, Bumble is offering Bantr Live, and operates much like the fictional app, according to the company’s blog post. When you decide to play, you won’t be able to see or swipe on other daters’ profiles. Instead, you will be paired at random to strike up a text chat with someone who matches your location, age and gender preferences, but you won’t be able to see photos or their profile (just their name). Much like Bantr on Ted Lasso, these events are meant to spark conversation ahead of seeing what someone looks like to make for a more genuine match from the start.

Participants get three minutes to decide if they want to keep chatting, and then they are matched with the next participant to see if a connection can be made. At the end of the event, users can see who matched with them. At this point, they will be able to see the profiles and photos of these matches.

Bumble is testing a new speed dating feature in the U.K. to see how effective it is in getting users to engage with each other over the app.

According to Tech Crunch, the company has been alerting U.K. users to a specific date and time when the virtual speed dating event happens, so they can choose to join. When they do, they are not shown their dates’ photos up front – instead, they briefly chat before photos are revealed.

Tech Crunch did share how the feature worked, and that it’s being presented as a game rather than an event (referring to attendees as “players” who click a “play game” button to start). Participants must agree to some rules (similar to Facebook’s speed dating app Sparked), where they are asked to “keep it respectful” before they can play. They also must agree to not ask about their date’s looks – the reveal comes later, after the two have decided there’s a connection. Each couple is given three minutes to chat before they can see each other’s photos.

The Right Stuff, a conservative dating app backed by investor Peter Thiel, launched in late September and has already been met with controversy. More than one quarter of users give it a one-star rating, with many complaining about the lack of women using the app despite the female-focused marketing campaign.

The campaign featured several women professing to want a conservative man with their same conservative values. However, the people joining for the most part seem to be middle-aged men, and they are not finding a lot of choice when it comes to swiping. Another reason for the lack of people on the app could be its invite-only premise. New users can only join if invited by an existing member.

According to Gizmodo, January 6th is also sparking some controversy for the app, with some users posting that FBI agents have come after them after they’ve shared that they attended the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol. The Right Stuff asks users to respond to a series of prompts when setting up their profile so matches get to know them, and one prompt says “January 6th was…” which is open-ended enough for people to write and potentially incriminate themselves.