Marketing

Hailey Welch, the “Hawk Tuah” girl who rose to fame from a viral video moment has now launched a new dating app dubbed Pookie Tools.

Pookie Tools is AI-based and acts like a virtual wingman, offering everything from conversation prompts to outfit recommendations to profile enhancement tips.

The app targets the Gen Z market with some of Welch’s “cheat codes,” as the description in the app store reads. The cheat codes include a “Conversation Assistant” and “Text Responder” that offer personalized prompts to keep conversations going and an “Astrological Insights” feature that helps determine a match’s compatibility based on zodiac signs.

The share price of Match Group Inc. dropped after a disappointing third quarter earnings report, signaling that consumer interest in paying for dating app subscriptions continues to wane.

According to Business Insider, Match Group shares dropped more than 18 percent after the company reported that paying users on its most popular app Tinder fell 4 percent in the third quarter from the same time period last year, to $9.9 million. The revenue decline for Tinder has been continuous the past few quarters, and Match Group says it expects this slowdown to continue in the fourth quarter.

Hinge continues to be the star of Match Group’s offerings, growing 36 percent year-over-year, though its userbase is still a fraction of Tinder’s.

The Democrats have launched a new series of ads on dating app Grindr to appeal to young LGBTQ+ daters, in hopes of turning out more votes ahead of election day on November 5th.

According to The Advocate, the targeted ads focus on the Republican party’s Project 2025, emphasizing that the document threatens LGBTQ+ rights. These ads urge people to vote against the extremist agenda. One ad says: “Project 2025 Rips Away Our Rights. Stop Republicans. Make a plan to vote at IWillVote.com.”

The Kamala Harris campaign has spent three figures on the ads, indicating the importance of the LGBTQ+ constituency to her success.

Chispa, a dating app for Latino singles, has partnered with non-partisan organization Voto Latino to encourage more Latinos to go to the polls.

The dating app launched a co-branded election hub on its platform, offering users information on how to register to vote as well as early voting, mail-in voting, and candidate details according to the press release. Chispa said it created the hub to boost voter registration and participation in the Latino community and will in turn support Voto Latino with a contribution toward their voter drive efforts.

Eighty percent of Chispa users are between 18 and 34 years old, a prime demographic as both political parties target younger voters. Voto Latino provides information on registering to vote (which varies from state to state), as well as polling location information and early voting options.

Image: OkCupid

OkCupid has added a range of new politically-focused questions to its platform along with politically-themed badges ahead of the 2024 US election.

According to CNN, the new questions focus on voter behavior and help users choose more compatible profiles. Some questions include: “Are you voting in the 2024 presidential election?” and “What’s the most important issue to you in the 2024 presidential election?”

Other questions refer to whether singles are willing to bridge the political divide, such as: “Is it a dealbreaker if your date is voting for a different candidate than you in the 2024 presidential election?”

New gay dating apps like Scruff and Archer are positioning themselves to capture a bigger portion of the LGBTQ+ online dating market as Grindr complaints and technical issues rise.

Grindr has long been the most popular dating app for gay daters, but recently people have posted complaints on social media and online forums, saying that they are experiencing technical issues, not getting access to the features they paid for, and other problems, according to Mashable.

This year, Grindr has experienced significant bugs and periods of downed service. At the same time, it has asked its users to pay more to access certain popular features, including limiting both “taps” and “explore” features and requiring them to buy subscriptions.