The story behind Tinder's "It Starts with a Swipe."

Summary

On Strategy Showcase: The Story Behind Tinder's "It Starts with a Swipe"

Host: Fergus O’Carroll
Guests:

• Stephanie Danzi – SVP, Head of Global Marketing at Tinder, Los Angeles
• Ed Gunn – EVP Strategy at Mischief USA, New York City
  Release Date: January 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of On Strategy Showcase, host Fergus O’Carroll delves into the strategic evolution of Tinder’s iconic campaign, "It Starts with a Swipe." Joining Fergus are Stephanie Danzi, Tinder’s Senior Vice President and Head of Global Marketing, and Ed Gunn, Executive Vice President of Strategy at Mischief USA. Together, they explore the challenges Tinder faced in shifting its brand perception from solely facilitating hookups to fostering meaningful relationships.

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The Shifting Landscape of Dating Apps

Timestamp [04:48]
Ed Gunn opens the discussion by highlighting the substantial transformation in the online dating industry over the past decade. He remarks:

“An enormous shift. Online dating used to feel like a place for losers to meet other losers. Then Tinder disrupted the space, making it fun and sexy, almost taboo. Subsequently, apps like Hinge and Bumble carved out niches—Hinge promoting itself as a platform to find long-term relationships, and Bumble empowering women to make the first move."

This diversification led to Tinder being perceived primarily as a hookup app, necessitating a strategic pivot to redefine its brand image.

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Identifying the Perception Problem

Timestamp [06:49]
Stephanie Danzi addresses the perception challenges Tinder encountered:

“Tinder has always been a lightning rod. As a disruptive innovation, it attracts a lot of flak, especially around young people and sex. There’s always sensationalism, but the reality is that bad behavior in dating has always existed, not just on Tinder.”

She emphasizes that while Tinder was thriving during the COVID-19 pandemic due to increased digital connections, the post-pandemic era brought a backlash against digital interactions, affecting user perceptions.

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Developing a New Positioning Strategy

Timestamp [08:33]
Ed Gunn explains the initial approach when partnering with Tinder:

“Tinder didn’t have a product problem, but a perception problem. We aimed to create a global positioning that resonates with Gen Z's understanding of love, finding a balance between fixed global themes and local cultural nuances.”

The goal was to establish a clear and relatable brand positioning that acknowledged the hookup stigma while highlighting the potential for meaningful relationships.

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Creative Campaigns: From "Rom Com" to "It's Great to Be Wrong"

Timestamp [10:21]
Stephanie discusses the creative direction taken to reshape Tinder’s image:

“Our 'Rom Com' campaign was inspired by the serendipitous nature of relationships starting on Tinder, similar to those in romantic comedies. We used real DMs and imperfect, funny scenarios to portray Tinder as a platform where anything can happen—from one-night stands to lifelong partnerships.”

One notable campaign, "Rom Com," featured relatable scenarios where couples met through Tinder, blending humor with the romantic possibility of digital connections.

Timestamp [20:00]
Ed Gunn elaborates on the subsequent campaign efforts to solidify the new positioning:

“With 'It's great to be wrong about Tinder,' we emphasized that while people might underestimate Tinder’s potential, every three seconds a new relationship begins on the platform. This reinforced the idea that Tinder isn't just for fleeting encounters but also for lasting connections.”

The accompanying commercials showcased everyday moments enhanced by Tinder, such as meeting in an art class or a bookstore, each culminating in the affirmation that meaningful relationships often start with a simple swipe.

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Global Consistency with Local Adaptations

Timestamp [34:39]
Stephanie outlines the balance between maintaining a consistent global message and allowing local markets to tailor campaigns:

“'It Starts with a Swipe' is broad enough to allow for local flair. For example, our Europe team is running a campaign with a famous German DJ couple who met on Tinder. This approach ensures global consistency while respecting cultural differences.”

This strategy enabled Tinder to maintain a unified brand message worldwide while addressing specific regional preferences and narratives.

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Challenges and Strategic Insights

Timestamp [35:06]
Stephanie shares key lessons from Tinder’s brand repositioning:

1. Meet Your Audience Where They Are:

   “Your brand is how your audience experiences it, not how you describe it internally. Acknowledge their reality, even if it’s negative.”

2. Bridge to the Desired Perception:

   “After acknowledging current perceptions, seamlessly transition to the new brand narrative that resonates with the audience’s aspirations.”

3. Commit to the Change:

   “Be bold and give your strategic shift the necessary time and resources to succeed. Consistency and perseverance are crucial.”

Ed Gunn adds his perspective, emphasizing the importance of staying true to the brand’s unique attributes and not succumbing to trends that don’t align with the core brand identity.

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Impact and Success Metrics

Timestamp [43:50]
Stephanie discusses the tangible outcomes of the rebranding efforts:

“We observed a significant decline in Tinder being viewed solely as a hookup app, aligning with our key objective. Revenue growth continues, particularly among young women, indicating improved brand perception and user engagement.”

Additionally, the campaign achieved cultural penetration, with Tinder’s tagline appearing on shows like Jeopardy, demonstrating its integration into mainstream conversations.

Timestamp [45:29]
Ed Gunn highlights the cultural impact:

“We were even featured on Jeopardy! as the brand behind the tagline 'It starts with a swipe.' This kind of cultural recognition is a testament to the campaign’s success in reshaping Tinder’s image.”

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Fergus wraps up the conversation by thanking Stephanie and Ed for sharing their insights into Tinder’s strategic transformation. The episode underscores the importance of understanding and addressing brand perception, leveraging creative storytelling, and maintaining consistency while allowing for local resonance.

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Notable Quotes

• Stephanie Danzi [02:20]:
  “Every relationship starts with a hookup. It’s casual until it isn’t.”

• Ed Gunn [08:33]:
  “Find something fixed but flexible, something engaging, something that is uniquely Tinder.”

• Stephanie Danzi [13:21]:
  “We acknowledge that hookups happen on Tinder, but they can lead to all these amazing types of relationships. Whether it’s one night or forever, they’re all valid and interesting.”

• Ed Gunn [35:06]:
  “You can switch your greatest weakness into a strength by interrogating it and seeing if it's possible.”

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Key Takeaways

• Addressing Perception: Recognizing and directly addressing negative perceptions can pave the way for effective rebranding.

• Creative Storytelling: Utilizing relatable and humorous narratives can humanize a brand and highlight its positive aspects.

• Global Strategy: Balancing a consistent global message with localized adaptations enhances the brand’s relevance across different markets.

• Measuring Success: Combining direct business metrics with brand perception studies offers a comprehensive view of campaign effectiveness.

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This episode serves as a valuable case study for marketers aiming to evolve their brand’s reputation, demonstrating the power of strategic creativity and audience-centric approaches in achieving meaningful brand transformation.

Transcript

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Welcome to OnStrategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O'Carroll in Chicago. You can connect with me on LinkedIn and see all of the creative work associated with this episode and all of our episodes on our [e-mail] and speaking of LinkedIn, if you're familiar or you're considering doing a LinkedIn ads campaign, LinkedIn is offering $100 credit to OnStrategy showcase listeners. If you want to try a campaign for your brand, you can just go to linked, that's LinkedIn.com onstrategy and check out the hundred dollar credit. Hope you find it. Hopefully it's good for your brand and we appreciate it from that group at LinkedIn ads. We are taking the show on the road again in 2025 and we're starting off in Toronto with a theme called the Rise of the Independents. There are a lot of great small and growing small and mid independence in in Canada and we're going to be having four of the four of those agencies that are based in Toronto come along and join us at Rethink's offices on Thursday, February 20th from 6 to 8pm we have Rethink, obviously. We have Zulu, Alpha, Kilo, we have Courage and we have bhla, which is Broken Heart Love Affair. Broken Heart Love Affair joining us. And we have the CSOs from these agencies and we're be talking about how these agencies have grown, what has enabled them to grow and what is their approach to strategy. And I want to make clear as I have in every quarter where I talk about this, this is not about bashing the holding companies. This is about celebrating how these independents have grown. So if you're working for a holding company brand, do come along. This is for everybody in the Toronto ad community, whether you're in strategy or creative or you're in account management or you're a client, we'd love to have you there. You can get tickets for February 20th event under the live Tour tab on our [e-mail] so we hope to see you there. Here is a clip from today's episode.

[Stephanie Danzi]

When we came to mischief. Actually the really, really interesting unlock that they gave us on top of this amazing creative work was every relationship starts with a hookup. Greg Hahn actually said, I think it's going to be easier for you to redefine hookups than it is for you to redefine Tinder. And so that was a really powerful reframe if you think about that is huge Right.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

That's huge.

[Stephanie Danzi]

It's huge, right? It's casual until it isn't. Like they're a hookup until they're your boyfriend. You know, my. My husband, who I met on Tinder, was not my husband from day one. He was just a guy that I met on Tinder and met out at a bar. And so leaning into that space was. Was just really interesting. And I think it gave us permission because we were saying, we acknowledge that hookups happen on Tinder. We acknowledge that you think that's what this is about, but actually, that can lead to all these amazing types of relationships. Right. Whether it is one night or forever, they're all valid and they're all interesting.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

That's Stephanie Danzi. She's svp, head of global marketing at Tinder in Los Angeles. She's joined by Ed Gunn, EVP strategy for Mischief USA out of New York City. Now, Tinder's campaign's been going on for a few years. They have that line you may be familiar with, which is, it starts with a swipe. And like many brands out there in various categories, sometimes reputational factors can become sticky factors to your brand, and they can begin to impact your business in a negative way in certain segments. And that's what happened with Tinder. Over the last couple of years, Tinder began to be draped with this impression of it being there for hookups. And that wasn't a universal perception, but it was a troubling one. And so the brand needed to evolve itself away from that and actively use strategy and communications to begin that process. So we're going to hear today about the story behind that evolution. What led them to make the choices that they made. And we're going to be talking about a number of the creative expressions that resulted from that. So, terrific team with Mischief and with Tinder. This is Stephanie Danzi and Ed Gunn. Enjoy. How do you look at the landscape of the dating apps over the last five to 10 years? I mean, there's been a major shift from what it was to what it has become, right?

[Ed Gunn]

Yeah, an enormous shift. I think you look back at where Online Dating was seven, 20 years ago. You've got to basically put in a resume and then light your match with someone. And there was a huge cultural ick.

[Stephanie Danzi]

Those.

[Ed Gunn]

It felt like it was a place for losers to meet other losers. And then all of a sudden, with Tinder coming in, it felt like, oh, my God, it's fun, it's sexy, it's like, almost a bit taboo. And then all of a sudden, hinge, Bumble, all of these new players started coming in and almost by their positioning, depositioned us. So with Hinge saying, oh my God, you can find the love of your life on here, or Bumble saying, we're a place where women make the first move. They are in control here. By definition, it makes Tinder seem like a place where you're not going to find that long term relationship. And Bumble's going to say that it's actually a place we're not equitable with women. So the landscape, as people found out, there's a lot of money to be made here, all of a sudden end up finding their own little niches and growing off those niches. Raya does it for celebrity, Field does it for Kinks. Everyone finds their new way to play. And so a market that was a category of one all of a sudden became a category of thousands. And there are so many apps constantly there which feel like the great new thing which is supposed to be a panacea for how hard dating is. But I think, as we all know on this call, dating's hard and it's been hard forever. It's often not the app's fault. It's just dating itself.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So when did things start to shift for Tinder? Stephanie? I remember hearing about the Tinder swindler movie on Net. I think it was a documentary on Netflix. A couple of years. There was this sort of buzz that sort of began to question what Tinder was all about and what it signified in culture. I mean, do you feel that the promise of this, of sort of abundant choice lost its luster or did the category sort of lose control of its own message? I mean, how do you think about it?

[Stephanie Danzi]

I think Tinder has always been a lightning rod. When you are a completely disruptive innovation like Tinder was, it gets a lot of flack and it's. It's always gotten a lot of flack. It's kind of funny, there's this sentiment right now that there used to be this golden age of dating apps. But like in 2015 is when Nancy Jo Sales wrote this takedown of the horrible Tinder and dating apps were. You know, it's just kind of. I think there's always going to be sensationalism, especially around, frankly, young people and sex. And sex is a natural part of dating. So I think it's always been a lightning rod. You know, you mentioned the Tinder swindler look in that documentary. At the very end, the main woman actually says, I'm back on Tinder. Like the Reality is there is bad behavior in dating that has always existed.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So, just for listeners who don't know, Tinder, Swindler was not about Tinder. It was about a guy who took advantage of women in various ways, financially and otherwise, and he met them on Tinder. So it could have easily have been one of the other dates. It wasn't anything that Tinder did, it was something that he did. So, Ed, let's talk about where things sit with you guys when you first come along to work with Tinder. Because when I look at the body of work that you guys have produced, there seems to be a number of phases to it or a different message, or an evolution to the message over time. Can you think back to when Tinder first came to you guys? I'm assuming you were around three years ago on it. If I'm wrong, then this is a terrible question, but what was the ask and what was the dynamic at that time?

[Ed Gunn]

Well, I think there was almost weirdly two phases to how we got together with Mischief and Tinder. So one predates me and one I was there. And I think the predate was a project that we did which was all around basically finding people who maybe weren't sharing their same interests. There was some really awesome work that came out of that. And then, weirdly, this was my first project at Mischief. I'd literally just signed. I worked on the Bumble launch in India, so I felt like this would be great to do something global. And what the Ask was was basically what we're talking about now, where Tinder doesn't really have a product problem, it's got a perception problem. How would we be able to try and find not only something for North America, but a global positioning for Tinder that is, I guess, really true to what Gen Z woman, who are our core audience here, 18 to 25 year olds, feel about love? Like, how can we define what love is at a global level that can then be turned into really specific country by country briefs? Because there seems to be. There's obviously a global need for love. We've all been there. I think the human race has been doing this for the last hundred thousand years, but there are cultural differences too. So how could we find something that's fixed but also flexible, something that's engaging, something that's fun and in tone with what Tinder wants, but also uniquely tender, which I think we felt was an exciting ask. It's a very tight needle to thread. But at the same time, who wouldn't want to try and figure this out? So it was, what is our positioning? And then how do we launch this? Because it's the first time, or it was the first time that Tinder had ever had a true positioning, had a line, had a point of view, because, as we'd mentioned, that's what our competitors had done. They'd used their positioning to deposition us. Let's figure out what our positioning is and go from there.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So that depositioning thing is important. So other brands out there, and we've had, as I mentioned earlier, we've had a few of them on here. They have talked about themselves, like, okay, Cupid talks about itself as the antidote to superficiality. Bumble talks about, she makes the first move, the woman makes the first move. Hinge is designed to be deleted. There was that sense that it was moving away from the transactional hookup and moving into more of the relationship. So with this repositioning, you not only had to come up with a new message, but it had to be. Be credible. I mean, it had to be something more than. We're not about hookups. And I know that's. I don't mean in a literal way, but you really. I suppose the question is, how deep was the damage? Was user base really down significantly? Was there really a problem, or was this about growth, Stephanie, More than it was about retention? I mean, how would you describe it?

[Stephanie Danzi]

That's a great question. I would say Covid actually gave Tinder a couple more years of growth than it maybe would have gotten otherwise. So actually, when Covid happened, I was working on a different dating app within Match Group at the time. We were all like, is nobody going to date? This is going to be terrible for the category. But actually, dating app competition, like bars went away, and it was the only place that you can meet people. And so all of the dating apps enjoyed quite a lot of growth during that period of time. And then as we started to come out of that, I think that's actually part of the nostalgia. Meet cute backlash that we're getting right now is there was also just this backlash towards digital connections because everybody was inside for so long and they wanted to return to irl. So it was kind of a combination of the cultural context, I think, started to shift. And we did. We continue to see revenue growth, but the user base was struggling, especially in our more developed markets. And so the ask of mischief really was this hookup stigma is limiting. It's not that Tinder can't be a place for you to find hookups, but actually the reality is 10 million relationships are starting on Tinder every year. You know, Taylor Swift's future in laws, probably Jason Kelsey and Kylie Kelce met on Tinder. I met my husband on Tinder. We've been together for eight years now and we have a three year old. Like, there are just so many people. Everybody knows somebody who met their person on Tinder. And so, you know, when we came to mischief, actually, the really, really interesting unlock that they gave us on top of, you know, this amazing creative work was every relationship starts with a hookup. You know, Greg Hahn actually said, I think it's going to be easier for you to redefine hookups than it is for you to redefine Tinder. And so that was a really powerful reframe. If you think about that is huge, right?

[Fergus O'Carroll]

That's huge.

[Stephanie Danzi]

It's huge, right? It's casual until it isn't like they're a hookup until they're your boyfriend. You know, my, my husband, who I met on Tinder was not my husband from day one. He was just, just a guy that I met on Tinder and met out at a bar. And so leaning into that space was, was just really interesting. And I think it gave us permission because we were saying, we acknowledge that hookups happen on Tinder. We acknowledge that you think that's what this is about. But actually that can lead to all these amazing types of relationships. Right. Whether it is one night or forever, they're all valid and they're all interesting.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Yeah. And it's not that hinge isn't leading to hookups. It's not that, you know, bumble isn't leading to hookups. It's just that you just happened to had to wear this and there was a stigma in certain quarters about it. And so, Ed, when you guys did research or when you looked into the category, was it that people didn't want to be associated with an app that was associated with hookups? And what they really wanted was a new way to explain why they use it, because I can't imagine that people are going to not use Tinder.

[Ed Gunn]

Yeah, I think our starting point, as always, when you get these sorts of things before we can do proper research, was that old desk research. And I think, as Steph mentioned, this is the category of love, which for most people is the most interesting thing that exists, especially for a younger audience. It's what our films are written about. It's what music's all about. And it's really complicated when you try and read and listen to what's going on through that because it's also sensationalized. You'll hear it through one side of the mouth, Gen Z are not having sex anymore. And then on the other, actually, they really want to hook up. And at one point, it's all about, oh, no, actually, there's a whole new way of dating, and they want to be really organic. And the other one is, I want convenience. So we're getting all of these ideas that we almost thought, do we have to run away from hookups? At the first point? But we decided this is global, right? So we decided to talk to a bunch of different countries. We talked to people in Brazil, people in Germany, and actually, funny about the Brazil one, just to prove that everything is a chance for a hookup or a meaningful connection. After we left the focus group, all the participants ended up exchanging numbers at the end and went on dates themselves. Everyone is looking for these opportunities, and I think we came in with the null hypothesis that it was going to be a mountain to shift perceptions of hookups. But in talking to these people who are on the app, so many people are on Tinder, if it was its own country, it would be about the size. It would be bigger than the uk it is enormous. So they're in there for a reason. They knew what it was, and the hookups weren't a problem. The problem was that they felt it was just if a hookup didn't go anywhere. And they felt that Tinder, it didn't have that hope currently that it could lead to something more than a hookup.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So, you know, anecdotally, I have young daughters. They're 18 of twins. My youngest are 18 now. When Tinder started, they were like 8 to 10, 10 years old. This is a whole new generation of daters. And I know that my daughters. And I don't know why, but Tinder's now in vogue again, where it went out of vogue for a while. I've noticed that there's more conversation around Tinder that I hear anecdotally. It's very interesting that what you have here, and I'm sure you were super conscious of it, you have a whole generation of daters who never knew the original Tinder and may not have been plugged into the hookup culture as much as those who are older. So were you conscious of that? Were you targeting that new dater? Was that where you. Because that's where the future dater was coming from, that younger people coming from, coming into that 18 to 25 range, right?

[Stephanie Danzi]

Yeah, that's right. We spend a lot of time focusing on age 18 and, and sort of college age, because that's when you are most likely to be single. That's when you're learning to date. And you know, interestingly, Tinder is because it's a place that people learn how to date. It's actually a place where people discover their sexuality. In fact, a lot of queer people come out on Tinder before they come out anywhere else. And so, you know, we take that idea of discovery really seriously. And you see that in the work, we really lean on all of the different possibilities, all of the things that you can find. And, you know, looking at, I've talked a little bit about some of the different territories. That's one thing we've talked about is there is this self discovery that happens through dating and that's super relevant for 18 year olds. And so, you know, that was one direction that we thought about going in but didn't. Ultimately go in is how you can learn about yourself through dating. But we felt like focusing more directly on outcomes like relationships and connection. And that much can bring you joy.

[Ed Gunn]

I think knowing this audience as younger, I think if we'd gone and tried to, I guess, distance ourselves from previous baggage, you almost bring that baggage to the forefront, which I think these people, to your point, Fergus, they knew. And I think what we tried to do really intentionally was add a bit of fun and whimsy to dating. It is hard. It shouldn't be about the end goal. And you feel defeated if you don't make it to that final destination or whatever that is. These people are young. And in our research, our focus groups, they are very clear that they don't know what they want. These people don't. They probably don't even know what they want to study at college, let alone what their life and family structure looks like in 10 years. So to be a place that seems fun, whimsical, serendipitous, and meets them at their level rather than trying to meet them at their future selves, it felt really core to what we were trying to do as a brand, because that was our right to play. That's why we were successful 10 years ago was we were talking to now millennials about the fun, crazy things that you can do just through a swipe. Now, it was bringing it down to what these guys want, where their visual language has changed, because that often does change from generation to generation. But they want the same things. These guys are young. There's no point having to try and go, look, you'll find your husband and or wife and or throuple and or longterm partner here. It's whatever you want. You can find it here. And it should be as enjoyable as it possibly can because dating should be fun.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Is the latest work, Ed, Is it the rain, the rescue, and the taxi spots? Are those part of the most recent work, or is there more stuff that's out there that I haven't listed?

[Ed Gunn]

There's a more recent iteration to that. That was the rom com work. I think the most recent one is all around making our proof point really clear. So we discovered it starts with the swipe. We felt from minute one was able to tackle a lot of the brand problems. Like, we never saw the first launch as a panacea to everything that Tinder needs to figure out. But we found out two years, like three months ago, four months ago, even longer. Stefan team came and gave us a really clear proof point, which was that a new relationship starts every three seconds on Tinder. And that's huge. That's amazing. And if we felt that, that is an idea where a lot of the social listening we hear is, oh, yeah, Tinder seems fun, but it doesn't go anywhere. Or actually it does. And so the latest campaign is all around showing people that, hey, it sucks to be wrong about certain elements of their life, but it's good to be wrong about Tinder because Tinder actually works. And so it was all about trying to make this proof point that you may think this leads nowhere, but every three seconds, somebody is finding a relationship, and this is not just a hookup.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So for the listener, I just want to give you a little bit of a description of the spots you're going to see if you haven't, or at least you're going to hear them in case you haven't seen them on air. The first spot opens on two women at their easels waiting for the art class to start. As a man disrobes in front of them, they realize this class is not about painting flowers. The second spot opens on a couple on a date night at a restaurant as they take that first bite of food and realize that that hot spice can turn into sweat. And the third spot opens on a couple in a movie theater with their buckets of popcorn. We see how the guy overreacts to what he sees on screen.

[James Herman]

It sucks to be wrong about what kind of art class you signed up.

[Stephanie Danzi]

For.

[James Herman]

But it's great to be wrong about Tinder because a new relationship starts on Tinder every three seconds. Seconds. It sucks to be wrong about how much spice is too much spice for date night. But it's great to be wrong about Tinder because a new relationship starts on Tinder every three seconds. It sucks to be wrong about your boyfriend's tolerance for horror movies, but it's great to be wrong about Tinder because a new relationship starts on Tinder every three seconds.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So, Stephanie, were you guys seeing with the rom com work and we'll drop some of these spots in Rain and Rescue and Taxi, were you seeing that they were achieving certain things but were not achieving other things and therefore you needed to dial up other message factors that led to it's good to be wrong or it led to the this new relationship starts every three seconds proposition.

[Stephanie Danzi]

Yeah. So the idea behind Rom com, first off the brief, actually was sort of exactly what you articulated of bringing romance. We did want to inspire romance, inspire connection, and sort of validate relationships beginning on Tinder and highlight the serendipity. So there's a common insight between both campaigns, which is the cultural context that Ed talked about about people not believing Tinder works, but also the fact that Tinder does work feels like serendipity. When you talk to somebody who started their relationship on Tinder, if you ask them, how did you meet your partner, they will almost certainly start by saying, it's funny, we met on Tinder. When you do meet your partner, when you do meet the person you spend your life with, if that's what you want, that feels so lucky and so serendipitous. It doesn't matter if it started on an app or if it started in a grocery store, reaching for the same avocado. And so that was the inspiration for Rom com and really using real DMs and kind of the imperfect, funny nature of that and turning it into a romantic comedy.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So again, for the listener, what you're going to see here are two spots. The first one shows a couple with each of them standing on opposite sides of a taxicab in a city and they're talking to each other across the roof of the taxicab. And so that's sort of reflective of the movie, like, quality, of how romance begins, where in fact, what you're then seeing is that the actual conversation is also building on screen as a DM series of back and forth messages reflecting what they're saying. So in the second spot, what you're seeing is a bookstore scene very reminiscent of a. Of a sort of a rom com, where the girl is trying to reach the book on the top shelf and the guy just happens to be there. But then again, we see that the DMs are building on screen, which reflects the way they actually first met, which was on Tinder. Do you believe in love at first sight?

[Stephanie Danzi]

IDK is shrugging my dream. Do you?

[Fergus O'Carroll]

I do now. I do now.

[Stephanie Danzi]

You said that already. Sorry.

[Ed Gunn]

Double sin or you just really meant it?

[James Herman]

Meet cutes happen every day on Tinder, just not like they do in the movies.

[Stephanie Danzi]

Hey, thanks for making my day with your hays. What typo. I meant face.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Read receipt.

[Stephanie Danzi]

Did I ruin it?

[Fergus O'Carroll]

No.

[Ed Gunn]

My mom just called.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

She says hi.

[Ed Gunn]

Smirk emoji.

[James Herman]

Meet cutes happen every day on Tinder, just not like they do in the movies.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Out of the bearded barley night.

[Stephanie Danzi]

What was interesting is a lot of that worked, but the six seconds, which were just this beautiful romantic imagery with the claim written across them. Every three seconds a relationship starts. On Tinder. They did insanely well. The click through rate was amazing, the consideration lift was amazing. And so we thought, wow, we really have something here. And so the next brief that we gave that led to it's great to be wrong about Tinder was make the claim famous. And I think Ed and his team and the mischief team really rightly pointed out, okay, how do we balance this really hopeful world, this compelling claim, with the reality of where people are? And so we thought it's great to be wrong about Tinder. Was this perfectly. It feels specific because it feels like you're addressing the elephant in the room, but it's actually quite broad. It kind of gives you. It acknowledges the elephant in the room, but it gives you a little bit of that hope to go out there and see what you might find.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

We'll be right back. Want always on brand metrics that deliver value to stakeholders. This episode is brought to you by Tracksuit, a beautiful, affordable and always on brand tracking tool that helps consumers, marketers and agencies answer the question. Is what we're doing working? A not so secret fact is that companies pay $100,000 or more for brand tracking, which is out of the question for many modern brands whose budgets are under pressure. Tracksuit provides enterprise level brand tracking without the big price tag. Their in house research experts do the heavy lifting using best in class practices to craft and launch your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit is fast becoming the common language for marketers and agencies to measure and communicate the value of brand building. Check it [e-mail] that's gotracksuit.com hi there.

[Unknown]

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[Fergus O'Carroll]

Now back to the show. That's a really tough thing for many marketers to do, which is to imply or to literally state what they know is a perceptual hurdle. And it is even tougher for creative teams to be willing to even suggest that because they just maybe want to get to the benefit rather than to the problem. It tough, Stephanie, for you guys to be open to literally saying that or did you clearly understand from the get go that saying that was currency that you needed?

[Stephanie Danzi]

Yes and no. Of course it takes a little bit of courage to go put something like that out in the world to address the elephant in the room that directly. But. But we are really, really focused on learning from what's worked previously and building on that. And so since we've seen success from other creative like one of our very first spots under it starts with a swipe was it starts with this couple and they're about to kiss in a bar and it says sometimes a one night stand. And then you zoom out and they're sitting in a furniture store. Now turns into two night stand. And that ad did insanely well. It's so good. It's the perfect encapsulation of what you think about Tinder but then bridging you to what you also know to be true about Tinder.

[James Herman]

Some Tinder dates turn into one night stands, but some turn into two night stands. It starts with a swipe Tinder.

[Stephanie Danzi]

Like having sneak peeks like that. Right. That's not quite as direct as saying you're wrong about Tinder. But we knew that acknowledging it worked for us. And actually when we were aligning on concepts for this round of work and remember the brief was all around how do you make this claim famous? There was one territory that I actually still love and hope will create one day. It was really great. One of the spots was you start with this guy making keys and you hear the grind of the metal and you see him sweating, and over and over again, he's making keys. It's like this repetition every three seconds. And then you flash to this montage of couples, happy couples, trading keys. And it would say something like, a relationship starts on Tinder every three seconds. Great news for daters of the world, bad news for key makers of the world. We loved it. Like focusing on all of the negative consequences of all these relationships starting. But what we were worried about was it lives in that hopeful world only. Right. It is saying Tinder is a place where relationships happen all the time. And we were worried people wouldn't believe that. We thought we need to address them where they are and bridge them to where we want them to be. And so that's why we zeroed in on this. And I would say the other thing that made us comfortable, because, remember, this is the global campaign and there are different stigmas, different perceptions around the world. We tested it not extensively, but we did groups with people who use Tinder and like Tinder around the world. And. Right. Everybody comes with some skepticism to this platform. Even, like I said, the people who found success are surprised by the fact they found success. So we knew there wasn't going to be massive confusion here, massive backlash here. It wasn't really reinforcing anything specific because it's kind of this cheeky blend of it feel specific, but it's actually relatively vague at the end of the day.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So. You know, one of the things I often ask global marketers when they come on the show is when they talk about the desire to have a consistent message globally. If that is the goal as a marketer, Stephanie, is there the risk that you cannot use a different or slightly adjusted message? That is what the US market really wants or the UK market really needs. And so you have to raise above the specific market needs in order to create something that has global application. Is there a risk that you leave share on the table?

[Stephanie Danzi]

There's no perfect answer here for how you get the right global consistency and local specificity that you need. I do think it's easy for every market to just say, I'm a special snowflake. And things are totally unique here. The reality is everybody wants connection everywhere. Right. Especially in a category like ours, people want to meet people. And so there are a lot of commonalities you can build from. What's really beautiful about it starts with a swipe, is it is pretty Broad. There's a lot of work you can do under it to keep that consistency, but give it local flair. So we actually do let, we do let markets create their own work under. It starts with swipe. So everybody runs the global campaigns, but they can supplement those with their own local executions. Like right now, our Europe team is running this campaign that is all about this amazing DJ couple, Brutalism 3000. That's like the most German name ever. And they're very serious Germans if you watch the ad, but they are world famous DJs and they met on Tinder. And so it actually starts with them opening this massive festival and then it zooms back through time to when they actually matched with each other on Tinder. And so it's all about the different things that can happen that start with a swipe. So again, not the exact same message that we're running in the US or elsewhere, but it all ladders, it all ladders into the same thing.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

If you look at things that you feel that you've learned about this idea of shifting a brand's reputation, evolving a brand's reputation, and you get a pretty big shift that you're in the process of moving through. Any advice for others, other marketers that are out there that are doing the same thing? Can you give us one or two things that you think are lessons learned?

[Stephanie Danzi]

Yes. Let me give you three things. First, meet your audience where they are. At the end of the day, your brand is not what lives in your brand book. It's not how you talk about it at headquarters. Your brand is how they're experiencing your product. It's what their friend says about you. It's what their favorite influencer is saying on their fyp. And since that's their reality, you need to acknowledge that first and foremost.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

The second, even if that's negative.

[Stephanie Danzi]

Even if that's negative, right? You've got to be clever in how you do that. I mean, like, look at Ryanair, right? They, I love what they do on Social and you did a great episode, right? You can't just say, hey, look how great we are, and not acknowledge what people are. I think that my second ask or suggestion for people who are doing this is meet them where they are, then bridge them to where you want them to be. And I think where you're bridging them to needs to be equally true. So whether you are supporting that with new innovation or a fundamental change or just something they know to be true but don't think about, that can work, right? So for us, the every Relationship starts every three seconds. Claim is working well. But I would say it's not just because we have that stat, it's because it reminds people, oh, yeah, I know somebody who met their person on Tinder and so it can feel true to them. Right. For Ryanair, it's. Yeah, you're right. It is silly that I'm complaining about the fact that I don't have a window seat. Because your value proposition isn't having a window seat. Your value proposition is that you're cheap. Right. So you're just sort of shifting, reframing the way that people are thinking about their pain point. And then I think the last piece is you've got to take a big swing and you have to stick to it. So you need to be really, really brave, really bold. You need to give it a chance to work. That means you've got to fund it properly, you've got to give it the right amount of time. We always turnarounds happened overnight, but the reality is it takes years. Right. It felt like Barbie and Crocs and all these brands turned around overnight. They didn't. Right. It was a team spending years and a lot of money and energy and focus. And so, you know, when you are in a position that you are leading a department and leading a brand, you have to find ways to protect the creative, to fight for the creative and to really give it a chance to succeed.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

And so, same question for you, Ed. As a strategist working on a brand like this, you've got to. You've got to be able to calibrate this without being too practical. Right? I mean, what advice or what learnings have you had as a planner on this?

[Ed Gunn]

Quite a few. And I think a few of them are what Steve said are just like, they are the exact same. Like you can't run away from what makes your brand unique in an effort to try and catch up with the pack. If you want to be a leader, you can often switch your greatest weakness into a strength and at least interrogate that, have a look and see if it's possible. I think also as a strategist, often you can believe the hype of what's going on in terms of what's been said in press or other things. And so I think if we just taken that at face value, minute one, we would have gone great. We're going to be the anti hookup app. These Gen Zs, they don't want to really get in a relationship anymore. How can we become a friendship app? How can we do this? Let's change what the brand is is. But actually sitting down and talking, there's no pro with people. There's no problem with the apps. They're fine with it. They just needed a little addition to it. And I think in terms of the strategist again on this, and we had them a lot as maybe not being afraid to have hard conversations. I think our relationship, Steph, mine, Tyler, Kerry, Greg, the entire team on mischief side. Melissa there were lots of moments where we could have easily not done this, done something completely different because it was easier or even though we didn't have a proof point, let's just try and do this. Or moments where we would go, hey, look, this is actually what people are saying about Tinder right now. How do we do this? I think there's often a desire to go the path of least resistance and go, everything's fine, let's just get an influencer in as opposed to actually how do we solve this problem and how do we stay consistent to what we feel is working and have the confidence to follow that and solve dozens of tactics through that single strategy rather than re pivoting strategy in order to try and resolve something that's just happening next week.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So, Stephanie, 18 to 24 year olds, their appetite for consuming linear type television, for consuming ads that are ads and feel like ads. What have you learned about the best channel, the best way to reach them? Because I mean, the spots that we're talking about are they're, you know, they're 15 and 30 second spots. You've got to make sure that you get somebody's attention in the first one or two seconds. You don't have 30, obviously, and they're probably not watching a lot of typical tv. So where are you finding and how are you finding the most success in reaching people?

[Stephanie Danzi]

That's absolutely right. And we think about this platform as going beyond just the 15s and the 30s. And we have a bunch of different creative articulations of the same idea. So we do see a lot of success on CTV and frankly, CTV is TV now, right? You're watching Hulu, YouTube, all of that stuff on the big screen. And so it is, it's not linear, but it's a similar walking experience. So you do need to pull attention away from probably their phone as their primary screen. But we supplement that with other things. Like we did a snap lens on New Year's Eve for the second year in a row we've had that as a takeover because New Year's Eve is a massive camera moment and Dating is a top resolution and so it's kind of the perfect way to kick off this campaign. We've got six second forms at this spot. We've got. We actually took pieces of the spot and turned them into super social forward like anime style graphics of the spots or taking stills and turning them into memes. So we regurgitated the assets in a ton of ways that make it feel fresh and new and like it should be native to the platform that people are viewing it on.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

Any highlights that you want to mention, Ed, tactically in the comm strategy we've.

[Ed Gunn]

Mentioned One Night Stand, Two Night Stands, I love that it really set off the whole thing and it got a huge amount of play online. But I think a few things. One, finding these moments where based on our positioning we should be able to have a right to play. And I think one example, we did it last year and it was Mean Girls Day, which I'm sure you're a huge fan of, Fergus, the film Mean Girls. We found that that also coincides with Romance Scam Awareness day. And I think it was a huge bet for us to go, hey, look, can Tindinder, who has some negative baggage around trust and safety, could we have a point of view on this? Because yes, great things start with a swipe, but we also should make people aware of the maybe not so great things that can also start with online dating in general. And so partnering with one of the actors on that to launch that on social, taking that big risk of trying to co opt a day and make Tinder a part of that discussion. We were nervous. We were really nervous. But it worked incredibly. The positive sentiment that came through that I look at that in terms of where we were two years prior and I think if Tinder had done that campaign, we would have gotten roasted in the comments section. We would have been all over the press for probably the worst things possible. How dare Tinder talk about this? But because we had shown our commitment to this younger audience because we were part of the right conversation at the right time and we were giving meaningful education. Still, that fun, playful Tinder tone, the sentiment was so positive. All the comments were like, this is what advertising should be like. Good on Tinder for talking about this. Because Gen Z are more affected by romance scams than anyone else. So finding moments like that within the wider comms plan with these big beats, but finding these smaller, more tactical moments, I think they give us a huge amount of joy because you're solving small tactical problems that Tinder has. But in line with what we're doing in the bigger picture.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

So, Stephanie, last question would be impact. What are you seeing? What can you share regarding sort of brand lift impact and business lift impact?

[Stephanie Danzi]

In parallel to creating this new brand platform and great strategy and creative work, I live this parallel life where I'm partnering with our CFO and our marketing analytics team to build out how do you actually measure success on all of this? So. So that's actually been a huge journey for us over the past three years as well. Most marketers are the biggest single cost item on the P and L. And so as a leader, you really have to be constantly assessing if it's a smart investment and if it's working. So we do look at direct data, just pattern matching. Is the business growing? We do incrementality modeling, basically trying to piece out what did the business do versus what would it have done. And then of course we do your standard brand tracking, looking at media metrics and that sort of thing. It's still quite early into our latest version of this campaign, but all signals are extremely positive, which we're happy about. And over the last few years as we've been running, it starts with a swipe as a platform. Overall, we've seen a massive decline in Tinder. It's just for hookups, which was kind of our key goal. So it's been really, really encouraging. I'm really excited. It feels like this two years of very consistent smart work is finally hitting its tipping point. And I think we're just going to continue to see brand perception improvement and incremental growth with young women.

[Ed Gunn]

I think the one highlight on top of this, just because I agree those metrics are incredible and they continue to go in the right direction. I think probably the highlight was we were on Jeopardy. Remember that, Steph?

[Stephanie Danzi]

That's right, that's right.

[Ed Gunn]

We were a question on Jeopardy. Which was which brand's tagline is it starts with a swipe. And the answer was Tinder. And I think getting things in culture not only. I was at a friends family gathering and There were some 19 year olds there who met their partners on Tinder. And it feels like it's part of the conversation, but being in that wider cultural conversation for a brand like Tinder, who was only in the news for as we started this with Tinder swindler to all of a sudden being positive and fun and serendipitous and whimsical. It's early days, but we're on the right track and it's so encouraging that everything we do feels like it's building in the right direction.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

It is Stephanie Danzi. She is a SVP head of Global marketing for Tinder out of Los Angeles. And Ed Gunn is EVP strategy for Mischief USA in New York City. Thank you both for being on the show and sharing this great story.

[Ed Gunn]

Thank you, Fergus.

[Stephanie Danzi]

Thanks, Fergus. And thanks, Ed.

[Fergus O'Carroll]

And we will see everyone on the next episode.