Marketing

Are you excited about the new Tinder Plus service that has rolled out in the U.S.? Don't get too carried away – turns out, if you’re 30 or older, you’ll have to pay more than your younger single counterparts.

Tinder is charging users of its premium service only $9.99 if they are under 30, but those 30 and older have to pay $19.99 per month for the same service. In the U.K., the pay gap is even larger.

Tinder has been testing pricing and features of Tinder Plus in various markets prior to its U.S. roll out, which is expected to happen in late March. Reports have been mixed – while Tinder claims that its users have responded favorably to the premium service and its features (as well as pricing), the app’s ratings have declined in the U.K. app store thanks to several harsh reviews.

The success of the new service is important to Tinder, who has yet to capitalize on the sheer number of users of the free service. The company has struggled to come up with viable revenue streams that don’t take away from the user experience (they have tried to avoid in-app advertising), in order to maintain their growing user base. Offering a tiered premium service like Tinder Plus seems the best answer, adding some popular features based on users’ requests - such as the ability to go back and see rejected profiles, or to meet matches in different cities.

But along with these improvements, there are reports that Tinder is placing limits on the number of swipes any user can do per day for the free service (which sparked outrage in the U.K. app stores), prompting users to buy the premium service if they want to continue swiping.

And the latest controversy appears to be age discrimination. In a statement to defend its unusual pricing technique, Tinder said this to NPR: "Over the past few months, we've tested Tinder Plus extensively in several countries…Lots of products offer differentiated price tiers by age, like Spotify does for students, for example. Tinder is no different; during our testing we've learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about Tinder Plus but are more budget constrained and need a lower price to pull the trigger." 

Not everyone is buying Tinder’s explanation. As website Engadget pointed out, this “sleazy” move by Tinder will likely cause more people to lie about their ages on Facebook.

The real test will has come now since Tinder Plus made its U.S. debut this month. Perhaps this is the move that will make room for other competitors in the crowded dating app market.

There’s been an uproar lately with the launch of dating app Tinder’s new premium service, Tinder Plus. The problem? The company is charging users in their twenties $9.99 in the U.S., compared to those 30 and older, who will have to pay $19.99 (and even more in the U.K.).

This has notably sparked some outrage from product reviewers and bloggers, who note the enduring problem of age discrimination when it comes to online dating – especially towards women. According to studies released by sites like OkCupid, young women are more sought-after by men, no matter how old the guy is. According to dating site Plenty of Fish, the ideal age of a single woman is 25 for most of their male daters. And according to OkCupid, that number skews even younger – with the ideal age being 21 or 22, even if the men wanting to date them are in their forties. Once female online daters hit the magic age of 30, they are blocked out from opportunities – some reports pointing to as much as an 80% decrease in messages and matches - as the majority of men prefer to meet women in their twenties.

This isn’t new. And it does explain why many people post old photos and lie about their ages (much to the frustration of the online daters who meet them). So what will these daters 30 and above do with Tinder – will they opt in and pay for Tinder Plus, or will we see more of a dating revolt?

According to Tinder, the company’s move to differentiate pricing based on age really comes down to economics. The company has tested pricing, and discovered that older singles are willing to pay more because they have more income. (The company likens it to services like Spotify which offer discounted rates to “students.”)

The problem with this “economic” view, as some reviewers have pointed out, is that older online daters already have a shrunken dating pool to choose from. (And online dating is a bit different than streaming music – with streaming, you have access to everything offered in exchange for your payment; with online dating, you only have access to those who haven’t filtered you out of their searches, which means fewer options for more money.)

As the Washington Post says: “The [age] problem is so urgent, and so severe, that several sites have spoken out against ageism in online dating in recent years. In 2010, OkCupid’s Christian Rudder wrote an entire blog post dedicated to convincing men that the 30-somethings on his site were just as cool and attractive as recent college grads. On JDate — a paid dating site for Jewish singles — the site’s official relationship blogger, Tamar Caspi, went on a full-blown rant over age.”

The latest move by Tinder might affect its user base, but the problem of ageism in dating still remains. If people are looking to meet someone special, then letting go of superficial restrictions like age only helps open the dating pool – and don’t we all want more choices?

Tinder has already rolled out its new premium paid service Tinder Plus in the U.S., and among the new features are some protections from spammers.

Tinder Plus includes a new feature called “Unlimited Likes,” which seems counter-intuitive since users of the free app already have the ability to swipe left and right without limits. Unfortunately, spammers have taken advantage of this feature by creating spam bots which swipe right on thousands of profiles simultaneously, increasing users’ match potential.

Tinder has dealt with increasing abuse of its service from spammers. Chances are if you’ve downloaded Tinder, you’ve also come across a fake profile or two that are actually staged to sell you something or obtain personal information, (violating Tinder’s terms and conditions), rather than to make an actual connection with a real person.

Tinder sees its paid service as a way to reduce spamming, as the rewards for this kind of power matching wouldn’t be worth the cost. Apps capitalizing on users’ penchant to say yes to all their potential matches have cropped up, too – like Tinderoid (now labeling itself as “Tools for Tinder”), which enables users to “like” en masse. 

The roll-out of Tinder Plus has already happened in a few other countries, and so far limiting the number of likes has not been received kindly by users who are used to unlimited swiping. According to reviews in the UK’s app store (which dropped the service to only one and a half stars in its rating), Tinder has prevented quite a few users from swiping endlessly unless they pay for the premium service, and they are not happy about it.

Tinder however, says that regular users of the service should not be affected (as opposed to the tiny fraction that swipe right on every single match they can as frequently as possible).

“That behavior happens with a very small percentage of our users, and they usually find that the experience isn’t very good and self-correct on their own,” Sean Rad, the company’s cofounder and CEO, told Tech Crunch.

The algorithm Tinder has set up to block spammers analyzes a few things before it is triggered: namely, the number of swipes, whether the user is only swiping right, velocity, time spent looking at a profile, etc. According to Tinder, a user can swipe through as many as 500 profiles and still not be blocked or prompted to upgrade to Tinder Plus, so long as the user spends a certain amount of time looking at each profile instead of mindlessly swiping.

Tinder launched Tinder Plus in the U.S. this month. For more information about this app, please read our Tinder review.

While Tinder is looking for ways to increase its revenue stream with new premium service Tinder Plus, it is steering clear of any advertising that affects its service.

Although the company has strategically lent its brand to clever marketing campaigns - like Gillette’s facial hair survey and Domino’s Pizza Valentine’s Day campaign – they have avoided advertising that would compromise the app experience for users. Namely, in-app advertising.

The Gap however, decided that Tinder was the perfect fit for its new social media-inspired ad campaign: #SpringIsWeird, which included in-app advertising on Tinder. The campaign featured fake “profiles” of the Gap logo with messages including “you’re invited to the pants party” and “we’re taking 30% off all Gap denim,” which would appear when users were swiping through potential matches on the app. The Gap also created a “micro series” on Instagram as part of the campaign.

The Gap announced their campaign to a reporter for AdWeek in a story he promoted on Twitter after it was posted. But Tinder never approved the campaign, and apparently did not know it was happening.

In a tweeted response to the AdWeek reporter, Tinder’s VP of Communications & Branding, Rosette Pambakian, responded: “@GarettSloane we will be deleting those GAP profiles. It violates our TOS. We did not approve this campaign and it is not an ad.”

Trishna Nichols, The Gap’s leader of consumer engagement and brand strategies, described the campaign to AdWeek before the fallout: “We did a little something special on Tinder. It's a guerrilla [marketing] idea where you'll see a profile with clever messaging in the spirit of love and the perfect match. It's the perfect fit for Tinder.”

Unfortunately, the campaign wasn’t a fit for Tinder, and The Gap had never received authorization to post the ads. Tinder’s terms of service state that the service is "for personal use only" and that users may not use the service or any content contained in the service for "advertising or soliciting any user to buy or sell any products or services not offered by the company."

Other companies have done guerilla marketing on the app before, such as in 2013 when USA Network was promoting their show “Suits.” Advertisers for the show posted profiles of the show’s characters on Tinder, and they were not taken down. But now that Tinder is gearing up for creating new revenue streams, it could be that they will be cracking down harder on this type of “organic” advertising.

For now, The Gap will be moving forward with the campaign via social media, releasing an episode a week of its micro series on Instagram.

The latest dating app launch is capturing a lot of buzz - and aimed at marketing to the so-called “dating elite.” If you’re single and successful, The League might be the app for you.

The League has gotten attention because of its latest round of funding. Though founder Amanda Bradford was at first looking to raise half a million according to Time Magazine, she has now received $2.1 million from investors looking for the next Tinder – but without, you know – all the low-brow hook-ups.

The League differentiates itself from its competition by offering exclusivity – you have to be accepted into its network. The acceptance algorithm it uses according to Business Insider “scans the social networks to ensure applicants are in the right age group and that they are career-oriented.” The article goes on to say: “That doesn’t mean they have to be Ivy graduates or work for a big-name firm. But they should have accomplished something in their 20s.”

If you are accepted, you are given a limited number of matches each day at 5:00pm, which The League calls “Happy Hour.” You are also given the ability to refer one friend.

The League isn’t the first app to offer more “quality” matches as opposed to the giant dating pool that is Tinder. Hinge is invitation-only, working from your social media circles and offering a limited number of matches per day, as does Coffee Meets Bagel. The difference is that The League utilizes LinkedIn to find matches, avoiding direct contacts (like your boss) and working with those a little further removed. Some have argued that this blurs the line between business and personal, although eHarmony announced earlier this year they would be offering job-matching services to employers and potential employees.

So far, The League has attracted around 4,500 users from San Francisco. Like Hinge, CEO Branford wants to move slowly, city by city, to build her network in a more thoughtful way. She discovered most couples meet through school or work connections, and she wanted to optimize these already-existing networks (hence using LinkedIn for matching). In fact, she is doing much of the business networking herself by attending parties of tech execs in Silicon Valley and fundraisers in San Francisco. She walks around demonstrating her app and offering bracelets with the app’s logo to attendees.

“It isn’t an app for everybody,” Branford told the New York Times. “We’re trying to hit home that…people do have high standards.”

A new crop of dating apps are positioning themselves for the needs of the ever-changing online dating market by declaring themselves “Anti-Tinder” apps. And it seems people are ready to welcome something new.

Despite the popularity of Tinder, there’s been a big backlash against this type of “hot-or-not” dating app. The world of online dating has become bigger and easier to join, and as a result, daters jump from one profile to the next, on a seemingly endless search for someone "better." In other words, daters are fast adapting an ADD mentality towards dating. The attention span of most daters is about as long as it takes to swipe left.

If you like the results that you’ve achieved through Tinder, you can stop reading this now. However, most of the people I’ve talked to like the accessibility of Tinder, but they don’t like the endless stream of matches that go nowhere beyond a couple of texts.

Enter the latest “Anti-Tinder” dating app Talk or Not. Talk or Not hides the photos of its users so matches aren’t made by looks alone. According to its release, it allows users more control by “revealing user photos piece by piece only when a conversation is mutually exchanged.” In other words, you get to see if someone is hot or not only after you have a conversation.

Talk or Not was developed by graphic designer Britney Bachmann and content specialist Garrett Shawstad, who were both online dating and wanted a different experience than what Tinder provided. “It’s an odd thing to put yourself out there for the world to see,” said Shawstad, summing up the need for more privacy and selectiveness when it comes to online dating.

But Talk or Not isn’t the first app to compete with the likes of Tinder by putting conversation before photos. Dating app Willow, launched back in August of last year, is the creation of 23-year-old Michael Brunch, who also wanted to create an app with a “talk first, reveal photos later” philosophy. “We believe the best way to get to know someone, and find out whether you like them, is by talking to them,” the app’s website states. “A good relationship begins with a good conversation.”

Twine Canvas, launched in early 2014 also hides the photos of its users to be revealed once a connection is made. Rather than focus on conversation however, it is more visually-based, encouraging users to post photos of what they are interested in and let connections flow from there. Even dating app Anomo lets users hide their photos behind avatars, only revealing what they actually look like when they feel comfortable enough with a match.

Is more privacy a good thing when it comes to online dating, or just another marketing gimmick? It’s hard to tell at this point – but one thing is for sure: you can’t tell if there is attraction with potential matches until you meet in real life. So maybe instead of all the games, you cut to the chase sooner rather than later to determine if you’re a good fit.