United States

Image: eHarmony

eharmony unveiled a new ad for its dating app in time for dating’s busiest season, but the LGBTQ+-led campaign did not go over well with Christian groups.

The ad features a lesbian couple snuggled up on the couch waiting for their laundry to finish. When the buzzer goes off, one partner gets up to retrieve the laundry while the other lies on the bed, waiting and smiling. Then her partner unloads all the clean laundry on her, and she is elated and taking in the warmth of the clothes fresh out of the dryer. The tagline for the ad is: “Get who gets you.”

According to The Pink News, despite the cute and feel-good premise, right wing Christian activist group One Million Moms has launched a petition to remove the ad from the air, and so far have received over 12,000 signatures. The organization claimed that the ad was airing during “prime time” when children were likely to be watching television and was “crossing a line that eharmony should have never crossed,” according to the petition.

Shares of Match Group rose as much as 12 percent after The Wall Street Journal reported that Elliott Management had invested almost $1 billion in the company.

According to the report, Elliott has a long history of success in tech investments, including in Salesforce and Pinterest. The Match Group investment showed signs of promise to investors who have recently shied away from dating app companies in the wake of decreasing revenues and management turnover. As a result, share prices for Match rose as high as 12 percent and ended the day up 3 percent.

According to CNBC and The Wall Street Journal, Elliott plans to engage with Match Group’s management, but it is unclear as to how involved they will be, and if that would include nominating its directors. Match Group recently appointed a new CEO for Tinder, so Tinder’s previous acting CEO Bernard Kim can focus his attention on Match Group’s entire suite of apps, which include Hinge, OkCupid, Match and BLK.

Image: Tinder

Match Group has promoted Faye Iosotaluno to head up Tinder as its new CEO, replacing Match Group CEO Bernard Kim.

According to Tech Crunch, Iosotaluno has been at Match Group since 2017, and was promoted from Tinder’s chief strategy officer to the company’s chief operating officer in 2022, when former CEO Renate Nyborg left. Kim has been acting CEO of Tinder until a replacement for Nyborg was made.

“Faye’s understanding of the dating category is unparalleled and coupled together with her remarkable leadership capabilities, I know Tinder will continue to lead the category,” said Kim in a statement.

Dating platform Feeld debuted an updated app with more features in early December, only to find that users were having trouble logging in or using the app at all.

In a statement posted on its website about the app’s troubled relaunch, Feeld said: “Since our app update on Friday, we’ve been listening to your invaluable feedback, and understand your concerns about some of the changes, technical issues, and our responses. We know that some of you missed out on Feeld dates, Connections and experiences, and we are working on meaningful ways to make this right.”

After almost two weeks of continued problems, the dating app provided another update in mid-December.

Image: Tinder

Tinder has debuted several new graphics and video spots to appeal to Gen Z daters in a new global ad campaign launched this week.

The campaign rolled out in time for “Dating Sunday,” or as some call it, the Superbowl of the dating app industry. The first Sunday of January is the busiest day for dating app traffic and companies like Tinder expect this year to be no different.

According to AdWeek, Tinder has reported the number of messages sent across the app surges by 22 percent on Dating Sunday, and likes increase by 18 percent. Dating app’s busiest season extends from Dating Sunday through Valentine’s Day, when people are making New Year’s resolutions to find love.

Image: eharmony

eHarmony has released the dating trends it expects to see in 2024, based on its extensive annual survey of users, including new perspectives on what it means to date someone who’s “out of your league.”

The study also reveals changing attitudes about asking dates how many people they’ve slept with, and shares the biggest love life regrets of users and how they can impact dating habits going into the new year.

According to eHarmony’s press release (local copy), different generations have different perspectives on what “out of your league” means. Among Gen Z daters, 68 percent define it in terms of physical attractiveness, 43 percent professional success, and 42 percent financial stability. However, when it comes to what they look for and value in a partner, the top quality is emotional intelligence (28%) followed by humor (23%) and intelligence (16%).