Brand: Match.com
Execution: TV, online
Links: Cute Brit Chick, LaSirene7, MrChicago9, DanishBeauty22, Buddy20, 1Eamonn4U, ArtfullyUrs
Target: Singles
Rating: *****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
A series of :15 second TV spots featuring real Match.com users in candid moments, shot in black & white. Each spot has a minimum of dialogue and showcases the originality of the Match.com member. The username of the member is featured at the beginning of the spot. Each spot ends with the tagline “It’s okay to look,” followed by the Match.com logo.

What Works:
Match.com gives us a new take on the consumer-generated marketing craze with a series of spots that showcase some of the unique and intriguing single people who are looking for love on the site. The execution does a superb job of balancing professional, elegant black & white camerawork with highly personal and unguarded moments (such as when the user ‘ArtfullyUrs’ says ‘actually, I’m prrrrrobably pretty shy,’ as he literally paints himself out of the picture.

Strategically, this campaign is a brilliant countermove to eHarmony’s successful ad campaign (our review here) promoting its scientific matching method. eHarmony’s pitch is that knowing whether people share basic compatibility is the most important ingredient to a good match. True or not, the rap on the site has been that users do not get to see the people they’re being matched with until late in the process, and there is no browsing.

Match.com responds with a powerful argument – a picture is worth a thousand words. By showing how the personality of their users comes through in these videos they make a convincing argument for our ability to boil hundreds of questions down to a chemistry test. The users selected for these videos are polarizing and they’re meant to be. Even if they don’t appeal directly to us, we understand that we’ll be able to find someone we really like because the people on the site are so unique.

The consumer-generated aspect of this campaign intrigues us. While this advertising blog is supportive of the trend, consumers are not creative directors. Many consumer-generated ads look awful in the light of day and brands are understandably reluctant to engage them. By combining real users and their distinct personalities with professional lighting, cinematography and sound editing, Match.com has found a happy medium.

What Doesn’t:
These spots make a promise that it may be hard for the Match.com brand to keep. If the quality of its profiles don’t match the excellence of these quirky videos, new users will be disappointed rather than engaged. By showcasing appealing and unique individuals in videos with strong production value, the necessity for moving their users towards well-constructed video profiles increases dramatically. And the net effect of this shift could be to make it even harder than ever to assess true character as those users with access to better quality video production will have a significant advantage.

Branding Bottom Line:
Match.com makes ‘desperately seeing someone‘ look appealing.