Getting into the data-ing game

we are. We're back this season of love, the season of what Feb Feb this season of love. We're back from the I A B. It was a really good meeting a couple of days. We met some really cool people and I be dropped some knowledge about DTC brands

and what they're doing in the space. And I think for me at least, what was really interesting was this very very clear kind of call out from the I B about community, about content over advertising, and UM, we're gonna have Randall Rothenberg on the show to kind of walk through their findings because I thought that they were really smart. But when we were talking to UM, Henry Davis, the president and CEO of Glossier on stage the opening night.

One thing that Henry made really clear is, yes, we use data and we're looking at certain signals with our consumers, but if we are not in bed and we are not part of the community, there's not a ton we can do. And so how do we connect people around beauty? How do we connect people around identities? And I'm I think that that is not just for direct to consumer brands.

That's for everyone. And I think in not so subtle away Henry said, and I'm paraphrasing, he said, you know, kind of one of our next steps is to really start building ways of having the community talk to each other that and what does that mean? What does that mean? Did they start becoming more of a technology brand or

on the side, I don't know. Yeah, what does it mean when a beauty brand opens up a slack channel where you know, or they becomes and whatnot are being shared, or they become this lack of beauty right or they could become a slack of you know, something like even

becoming the actual pipe. I think that starts getting really interesting and then it also opens opportunities for new brands to get in on and get away from a Facebook, a Google, a YouTube, right and actually start interacting with a community that a brand has created and communication channel that they've created. It becomes an obsession, a place of obsession, you know, where people you know, you're you're getting served

all the context as opposed to part of it. Yeah, so we're going to have Melissa Habilei on who's the CMO of okay Cupid? After the break and before we get into that, one of the things that like I think our minds are in the middle of the conversation was around the incredible amount of data um and personal personal details of at a apps are sitting on that We were like, holy shit, how do you take this and start to streamline insights and information back into the market.

That brings us to the next level, one layer deeper into personas because the things that they're able to uncover in terms of how you know persone wants to get matched up with person B. I mean, those are the most intimate parts of you. Where how where are they going?

Like where is it happening? Both from a geographical standpoint, but like what are the topics and things that people are identifying with, which I think is really surprising when she starts talking about identities and where totally and and there are things that you we would we were like what we would have never guessed. She dropped some really interesting insights around UM relationships, UM and psychographics and politics that I think any brand should be listening to and

any brand should be aware of. It's not even about being in the dating space. It's about how people are starting to come together in intimate relationships. Yeah. Well, if I'm I'm Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts and I know that you know, insert data point. Here are the types of people that are coming to have their first day over you know, uh latte, and they want to talk about this that can completely shape the way I'm communicating to

those consumers totally. And there's twenty million of them globally. Yeah, it's impressive. I mean, it's impressively and it's I was really I mean, I think she said it was like a three point six billion dollar industry right now and growing. It's big UM and I think it's the new way. And Bumble is definitely cued into this because it's the new way people are meeting, not even in romantic relationships,

but Bumble has gone into Buble relationships full stop. Right, yeah, so that we are really excited to have Melissa on and we hope all of you ad Landias out there finding love in one way or another. Welcome back. We're in the studio with Okay Cupid CMO Melissa Habiley, who is reinventing the way we think about DTF. Welcome to

the show, Melissa, Welcome in India. So there's a lot of competition in the dating app world, right, So everything from the o G s like match dot Com to the new ones like Tinder and Hinge and ball and all of these. Um, you obviously came out swinging with this new campaign. Can you tell us where the point of differentiation exists for okay Cupid and why this campaign now? Yeah, and thanks again for having us on to talk about this.

I think what we wanted to do was not create something in isolation of me too and time's up and all these conversations we were having and and what a year it's been for women, and uh, you know, we talked about Okay, well what are women dealing with today? And we had you know, this term DTF is almost often used by guys to talk to other guys about girls. You don't have uh, you don't have a place in that, you don't have a say in that. It's a label

that you probably did not co opt into. And so when we were thinking, okay, Cupid's never had a campaign, which is so crazy, there this o G dating app that grew organically and had a great story and they were all about the data. So around like four years, I thought it was like ten or fourteen years. And then you know, the thing about that is we've learned a lot along the way. We've learned a lot, and

that's why we're really good at matching people. We have more New York Times vows features than any other dating app by a factor three. So um, we know we do the best job of getting people together. And with DTF, we you know what we didn't like was there are phrases out there that make women feel worse about the selves.

And so the idea was, let's change it. We worked with an unbelievable team at widen um, in particular jessin Ian who were um, you know, carl Oeil who are who are on the team, And the idea is, let's subvert reclaim DTF. The f is whatever the fuck you want it to be and you could be down to the fuck, but like you own that it can be

down to fall head over heels um. The campaign was shot by Maritio Catalan, who's one of those talked about artists of today, most recently The Golden Toilet, which you know, the Googenheim, very cheeky and a very cheeky way offered to the White House and the spector is my hero. I mean, I mean that's modern cur When has anyone talked about the Gouggenheim as much as they have over the last two or three weeks. She put them on

the map. And you know when we sat down in Marizio and Pierre Palos partner UM in Creativity UM and Widen, we were all brainstorming the FS. We wanted to shoot and we wanted to have something that we're political. There's this unprecedented moment right now politics and the roller and dating. So we have down to filter out the far right, which by the way, some places will not let us run.

We have down to um fight about the president. We have romantic ones like down to fall ahead of our heels, down to farmers market, down to floss together, because those are some of the things that you do and you're like early in the relationship, like an floss in front of him. Um. And then we have things that are you know, talking about this girl and you know people are doing like down to fire up the kilns. People

are into that, down to focus on my chakras. Uh, down to finish my novel because you've got a side hustle and that's what your f is. And we just want to affirm you. And you talked about, you know, this idea of dating being in this world of substance over selfies. Why do you think that's changed and how do you see Okay Cupid helping to elevate that in the dating world. What we notice is people are connecting

on issues and so we just started leaning into that. UM. We noticed that both men and women started talking politics in their profile. So there's been a one thousand percent increase in political terms used in your profile in just two years. What are some of those words, so it could be progressive, liberal, republican, politically active, some of the ones that you might expect, voting, UM, activists. Those are

all phrases that we're seeing people use. The Women's March became a really popular price for women to put their profile picture. And that is really important because you're signaling what you're about this isdies. Yeah, And isn't it cool that people are connecting not just and are you attractive and do you want to make out with them or take their clothes off? But are you like attracted to their mind? Their brain? And that stuff is a really

good starting point. What's what we're noticing is when people are upfront about I'm really passion about climate change, I'm really passionate about voter rights, I'm I'm passionate about women's right to choose, whatever those issues are. We see that both sides are connecting over that. How many people are on last year we had twenty million users. Now that's around the world, that's globe. Our biggest audience is in

in the US. You know, it's interesting as you're talking, you know, the idea that people are coming forth with this information in such an intimate place, right, So, as you think about audience personas, and we talk a lot about use cases of data and how brands stand to be able to actually monetize that or use it in a way that is providing value or insight back into

our industry. Right. So, yeah, the data that you're aggregating is essentially more intimate, seemingly truthful and real because it's the most personal part of you. And so are you doing anything with a lot of this data that you're curating and um, that would be provocative and insightful to the marketing industry at large? Do you plan to kind of come out with anything that talks about That's a great question. Right now, we only use it to better

understand how do we get more people together? Um. We certainly have been able to use that for good in a few ways, like drawing attention to votes that would have impacted health care for women, you know, right, so we're able to see things like when you know your dating app is the app you are using probably the most on your phone and as you said, the most personal and most vulnerable, the most intimate. Uh. Um, we right now we're really used man Tower just again understand

how people are getting together? How do we help you? Right? So one of the things we we introduced this tool where you could actually search around passions. We're kind of famous for these questions that you have to answer to on board, and we have three thousand them. You have to answer fifteen and some of those are political. You can skip them until you get questions you want and

you tell us how important those are. And so we had seen you know, we dropped in a question and me too, would you ever date someone that didn't support me to not? Surprisingly? You know women would not you know. Um, So when we we were asking questions about like how do you feel about what's happening out there? How do you feel at the conversations that are taking place? And that helped us inform the DTF campaign. Are you updating those questions like all you have some and so what

how do it? What? What's the scale of saying I'm gonna we're gonna bring in me to questions like what's that scale? When do you decide? Do you know what's so cool? And this is why the culture okay cup, it is great. At seven am we'll say, hey, you know we slat we should we need to drop this question in um and use this to help connect people. And by seven thirty it's in. Wow, it's it's if this okay cube. It is a really fast moving operation.

And what's lovely is you make decisions quickly. We don't let time kill the Yeah, well you kind of have to because these are the conversations people are having on their days over drink. Yeah, that's exactly right, Like, shouldn't your dating app be reflecting like what the conversations you're having at bars? Or I think you're in a really interesting position as you think about dating and sort of the conversations that are happening as a part of this

culture or really what's informing society and vice versa. And so you're kind of at this interesting intersection where you're really in the in the thick of it, where other people are like, should we go there? Should we not? Like you, you don't really have a choice, do you, We don't have a choice, And frankly, we think listen. Let's also be totally clear. I mean, you guys are the experts on this stuff. It's a good brand decision, right.

If you are talking to everybody, you're talking to nobody and so so be distinctive and like right, and so you know, you you've got to you've got to tell people what you're about. And you know, like yesterday I was like getting coffee and like Starbucks is grant behemous and people feel whatever, But you know, I love about Starbucks. Their benefits are great. You know, the benefits are because

comes from a blue collar family. His father broke his ankle or something and his family couldn't eat for a few months because of that. And they provide I V for women. So I'm like, I'm happy to support that. Even so, what what? What matters to people more so than ever, You guys are doing a really good job talking about it is what your brand cares about, what they get behind and if they make a statement or not does matter, And it matters if I'm going to

choose you or someone else. By the way, Okay, Cupid is free, so you know, we have a premium service, um, which is great and that's where a lot of our revenue comes from. But um, you know, you've got to take some bold moves and tell people what you care about. We were the first big dating app to create non binary gender options. We're one of the first big dating apps to create a great experience for l g B t Q. And is there a business case for creating

not We have twenty two gender options. The the amount of time and money and two gender options, there's no business case that would ever justify what we invested in that. But it's the right thing to do. Our ecosystems care that we do that, they care that their friends who are in those scenarios where you know, one of our hero images from DTF is two women in an embrace and and like, you know, the big business opportunities of the heterosexual audience, but our audience cares that we support that.

I loved that because what you see now is when Cecili Richards is posting, she's saying about Black Lives Matter, she's posting about many issues beyond the issue of women's health. And you see that out of a number of movements, um, you know, people supporting each other. And so we want to play in that space as much as we can authentically do that. Does Okay Cupid or does any dating app go too far? And having perspective like I don't think they go far enough, you know, I think that

I really don't. I don't think enough brands are going far enough, you know, um several years ago. But this is here's what's really awesome about my position is okay, keep it as a track record of this. When the then CEO of Mozilla made home of comments, we immediately said you were not participating. We will not be able to use this the Mozilla argument. Earlier this year, we had a white supremacist on this site, one of the

Charlotte organizers, and we booted him out very quickly. It was in corporate and we had a hundred sixty thousand tweets in like ten hours. And so we are unapologetic about some of this stuff. I think I think more brands and companies need to take some I think it's easier for you. It is easier, No, but it but acknowledging that it is easier, you should do it. I think you know how to brands start stepping into owning their perspective. How how do you you know outside of

how does a CpG start to do that? It's a really tough It's a tough Wait. Who do you guys think is doing a good job at that? I think

done amazing job. Teen Folk. I think teen freaking Vogue and like what Elaine um Walter Ross did when she was at the editor, Holy sh it ll All of a sudden, teen Vogue went from play cating and trying to sell advertising really at the end of the day too tweens and teens to having a perspective and rooting themselves in issues and conversations that we're actually being had, which you are doing. You know, I think we have an opportunity but also responsibility. I think you're dating episode,

you're vulnerable, it's like you're falling in love. You've got to be connected to what people are talking about and and you know that's where the opportunity is. You mentioned that you're a free service, which means you have to revenue dollars. So as somebody who is taking these provocative um stances around, you know, different thematics and culture, society, et cetera, how are brands reacting that need to reach this audience and advertise on your site. Yeah, that's a

great question because this isn't for everyone. And as we become sharper about who we are for and what we're about and what we're gonna put our time and energy into, um, some folks are gonna say that's not for us. And I'm really blessed to be in a position where you know, we're supported in doing that. Um. But yeah, it's not going to be for everyone. Who's who's like one of your you don't have to name the brand, but category

who's like category wise top advertiser. Okay, Cuban, you know, um we it's interesting because it's changed a lot, and I think it's going to change a lot in the next few years. I think what we're seeing our brands that you guys have talked about who care about uh more than just having the best product in ex category. They care about consumers and what they're doing and and

having a point of view on that stuff. So, um, you know, I'll tell you who I love to have you just you see with them the Cards against Humanity people did the wall and then you could get anyway. I just thought, you know they are Actually that would be such a fun partnership with you guys, so fun. Um. We have partnership with Rosetta Stone interestingly, But the idea

was about we're seeing people as being different languages. As border walls go up, people are more open and interested than ever before in connecting with people that aren't from that um from UM they're saying geography, background, et cetera. So there's a fast extady that came out this year, UM from like really similar people at like Nancy Colleges. Uh.

And the study was way sort of thing. The study was there has been an unpresident arise in interracial marriages, and that exactly correlates to when we saw dating apps come onto the scene, and that is so exciting. Community borders. It breaks down to ours exactly and you know, so we we have we work with some really um clever social scientists and people that are wet silier than us and say, hey, so why are we attracted to attracted to? Right? Like,

that's one of the most basic questions. It's fascinating. One of the elements, one of the ingredients, if you will, of attraction is familiarity. Um, most people are attracted to what they grew up with because it's familiar, and we don't understand, you know, subconsciously why we attracted what we attracted. But that's one of the drivers. So what happens is in a dating app, you may not may you will be exposed to more people than, um, what you grew up with, and you start to break down kind of

the paranters that maybe you had. My husband's Asian If you ever might I have been married to an Asian Australian guy as a girl growing up in Indiana, I would have said that sounds fun. I guess, like, you know, um, and and that's awesome. Less in ten percent of people and okay, Cupid even use a race or an ethnic filters and ten percent, isn't that great? We're all and we don't we we do not let you tell us here's the eye color and the hair color that we

don't we don't allow that. We don't want to encourage that. Um. I want to be about the story and are they funny and all these things. UM, So we're seeing some very really really fascinating shifts. Um you know, okay, cue, but it's the most interesting because we have such a a thriving presence in city. So you can san do you guys work with like anyone in like on a on a like n GEO level government level. Like some of this data is freaking fascinating. Is rightly different type

of census data. It's it's fascinating. It's interesting. We we did it. We did a big debate this week actually um on our dating apps killing romance. And by the way, we won the debate in a bit. And and they take these very seriously deep Ac Chopra and Peter Teal and Malcolm Gladwell all these people do this debate called intelligence square and and we looked at we can't share our data unless you know or we have to be

very careful to and when we are. But UM, one of the allow of the day points ruling as the rising number of marriages and the rates of divorce are falling. No one's saying that. No one's talked because people are getting married later and they're going for substance over selfie. And this is one of the biggest impacts is because women are working, so they and their identity is no longer like maybe our moms. There the AGENTA was largely

about family, family, wife, mom, whatever. You're making decisions based on a lot more than that. You're working, so you're waiting longer. But what's also cool is people that are relationships are coming from dating apps now and and we're seeing there was again another study from not like the match groups putting out the study, another study from UM.

I think the National Academy Science has said that UM relationships that started on a dating app outlast traditional relationships, and I don't I think that's partly with the dating app. I think it's a lot of that has to do with your meeting later. You're taking your time, you're focusing on what are you into, what are you gonna talk about?

And sometimes people don't get Cupid you're matching on more than the superficial hopefully and also just even front like people who just meet through fronts, that doesn't actually mean that that's going to be a relationship that lasts. You were talking earlier about the diversity obviously based on the city demographics that you have, and as you were talking,

this thought spurred to me. As marketers, we think a lot of about lookalike targeting, and what's interesting to me is, okay, Cupid actually makes me challenge that thought and thinking about you were talking about familiarity and this idea that like, do brands actually want to engage and lookalike targeting? Because the things that we based that on, right, so if you know you like this TV show and I like this TV show, well then we should be targeting the

same product. Is clearly we're of the same mindset. But the reality is people's personas and profiles are so much more complex and substantive than that. And so just as you were bringing that up, it's just an interesting thoughts, like you break down borders and you allow communication to kind of get beyond the iron hair color, Like, do we have it wrong when it comes to look like targeting. I think you're totally right. That's such an amazing point.

I think you are. This is why we have a lot of advertisers that come to okay Cupid because we're able to hyper target and we truly know more about people than anyone else because of the nature of what we're doing. Have you thought about building out okay Cupid experiences? So is there a part where you match the people and then there's a partner that's going to help you execute the first dage. Yeah, that's such a good question,

and we have thought about that. I think, um, listen, we're in the software business, which is a high margin, great business to be and when you start to look in to experience and things, that becomes difficult to scale and the business is less exciting. So we think about that stuff. But we you know, for now, there's no plans. But you know, we hear from advertisers and brands all the time, and we are doing more events with people like I want to get in front of folks. I

want to you know, we know that you are. You know, a lot of people know could keep it our entities there do you do I r L meetups, we do UM and listen. We're innovating in a lot of exciting ways. So you can come back in a few months. And I think I love the exclusive I think I think that there's such a huge place that I know you said you are serious about the data side, UM and privacy, Yeah, got it. But I think that if okay, Cupid had to be two B side in your business, that you

would fucking kill. But you guys have insights, like no one has insights. You have everything right, well it's so intimate, but you have location base, you have this, you have that. I mean like, holy moly, if you could go in and go and talk to brand some publishers about you know, major kind of future forecasting. But also think about it. We need all these commercials that you see out there, like oh we get people together, we get together, we

get we actually know what gets you together. We know the brand, you know the place from the time of day. Like publishers. Publishers they actually need, like almost the more traditional publishers, they need some of these insights. They need some of the insights around like how are people connecting, what are topics what's the new language, what's this? What's

I mean? You can do it from a surface level, but getting down to some of these more like detailed understandings of like what's happening and what are the conversations and what are the drivers and identities and you know, that's amazing for for anyone that's creating content. Anyone. Yeah, well, that said, it's time to play our favorite game. I'm

like excited for your answers. Well, I would okay with d I y Amazon, because when I'd be the richest person in the history of the world with Jeff Bezos, they know that's the new record, which is ever we need to we need to look back and say how many on the show. I'm like, yeah, sure, yeah, that's he's coming on the show. I would I gotta say this. I would kill bad dating behavior, kill that. I would kill the hay because a lot of guys they say, they say hey, and the girls like they roll their

eyes like okay, kill they kill that. I would buy real estate in downtown New York. But like in the sixties, in the sixties, yeah it was cheap. N oh, yeah, oh you are up there. That's not downtown, all right, that's yeah, that's good. I would build Amazons and I owned it, so we see that money motivates you. But hey, annoys you all right? Oh I like the psychology answers around. Very good, Melissa, This was so fun so much. You

guys are so cool. I'm gonna have you back on and you're gonna talk about some of the fact you're doing. So Melissa, if people want to find you, how did they find you? And please reach out because we're just doing some crazy cool things now and we work really really fast. Um hobbily at okay Cupid, h O b l e y at okay cupid dot com awesome or the usual social places. You guys are awesome, Thank you much. Yes, love and smart love like smart love. We are dad

to fucking hang out with you. Anything than sorry Dad again from the language All right, all right, big thanks Melissa happily from Okay Cupid, Cameron Drew's. We know you're looking for love and all the wrong places, but we give you lots of things. Andy Bowers, Matt Turk and all of our friends and family at Panoply, and we will be back in two weeks to tell you about served over Sound, our new dinner series Go kill it at Landia full disclosure, our opinions, our own How are

people going on dates? Like what are the popular like first spots question? So so, um, it depends on your city, is the first thing. So depending on where you are. You are. So in Austin, you know Austin, like Austin's food truck scene is so sick um. And you know, we've been spending all the time in Austin because we want to understand what people are doing. Like food trucks are like that's like a good day in Austin because they're great and like listen, if you're young, you don't

want the guy to drop. Actually, did a food truck? Did a catfish food truck to talk about how you can't be catfished? Yeah? Yeah, we thought that that was clever. That was clever. Um. You know people don't catfish on Okay cube it as much because we make you go through a more rigorous profile. But anyway, um, what are a little up? Oh it's a head to have the competition, right, Um. So, so it depends on your city. Um, in New York, it's bars right because we don't have to no one's driving,

so it's really easy. UM. San Francisco, you'll see more things like, oh, do you want to go to this, like tech stars meet up or like this. You know people will do business centric dates more than other cities. Actually everyone's hustling, so you know they might both be going to some lecture or something like that. UM. In places like Portland's craft beer is so big, so a lot of breweries, but you'll see like like there's also like hikes or you know, a cooking class like