Dating apps aren’t just changing our love lives, they’re also changing the way we find jobs, view advertisements and arrange dates, according to industry experts.
Businesses are beginning to see the potential of dating services. Several are being used to advertize fashion and luxury brands, such as JW Anderson, which launched a collection using Grindr in January.
“Grindr has something like 7 million active users at any one time, so you’re looking at quite a significant consumer platform in terms of engagement,” explains Jonathan Openshaw, editor at The Future Laboratory, in an email to CNBC.
“Diesel has also been experimenting with the platform, explaining that brands need to see them for what they are – hugely popular social media platforms.”
Another online dating service, eHarmony, has applied its knowledge to the human resources sector with their Elevated Careers recruitment service.
“It’s quite an innovative move to take the same functionality and mentality that we see in dating and social – which is basically all about chemistry and connection – and applying it to the jobs market,” Openshaw said.
“We’re starting to see a lot of traditional industries such as HR (human resources) and finance become more gamified now, so it may point towards a bigger role for playful and engaging interfaces like Grindr and Tinder.”
U.K. lingerie retailer Ann Summers is set to capitalize on the demand for dating services with its own app, Rabbit. The company has partnered with several food and drink companies, allowing users to choose a location for their date, read reviews and select offers through the app.
According to Jacqueline Gold, CEO of Ann Summers, dating apps are a fantastic way for brands to engage with their audience.
“They allow brands to communicate in their own voice which adds a personal feel and shows consumers that the app understands their needs,” Gold told CNBC via email.
“Apps work to enable loyalty between the brand and consumer – it is very much a two-way street because in order to engage your audience through an app, you need to offer them a newer or easier alternative to what is already on offer.”
Gold doesn’t think the presence of ads will put off users, as long as they don’t harm the user experience.
“Ads help to fund app development which in turn improves the user experience, therefore users don’t generally mind the addition of ads,” she said. “It is only when there is an overburden in advertising that users can be put off, as this begins to affect their user experience.”
One reason dating apps are effective for advertising is because they are becoming indispensable to users. Didier Rappaport, CEO of dating app Happn, believes these services play an important role in society.
“We are talking about an essential need, which is the one of meeting other ones,” he said. “This is a need which is urgent today because we can see in all the big cities that despite the density of the people, they really have difficulty to meet each other.”
[“source -cncb”]
