Oliver UK

Client: The Guardian
Product: Soulmates
Title: Playing Cupid For The Ideologically Suited
Media: Digital/Social/Press/OOH
Country: UK
Date Of Campaign: 14.02.2018

Background: The Guardian's dating service has introduced plenty of lefties looking for love over the years. However, as the service started as a classified section in the paper, it risked being left behind as more and more online dating services launched.We needed to find a tone of voice for the brand that would reestablish its relevance and define its niche and unique selling point.

Idea: We knew that Soulmates was The Guardian's most closely aligned vertical, people who used Soulmates read the paper and aligned to its values. Our campaign successfully amplified Soulmates' self-selecting nature. It used humour and poked fun at Guardian-reader cliches - all to show that Soulmates is the perfect place to meet someone who shares your liberal values. That said, Guardian readers do care about some worthy issues. But they're actually not so worthy, themselves. So our creative still spoke to the big issues - from the environmental to the philosophical. But in our use of humour, we showed that people who care about those things aren't as unapproachable and stuffy as convention would have you believe. Our strategy made Soulmates much more relatable to our target audience. And, as the results show, worth subscribing to. We developed a distinctive illustration style and created a tone of voice for the brand which worked across email, display, social, press, and out of home and for both brand and direct marketing. Our direct response work for Soulmates, played with the medium, embracing the cost saving offers and using them as another thing our users would have in common, they both have an eye for a bargain.

Results: The results have been strong. Since launch of the campaign, registrations have increased by 48.2%. When registrations increase, we hear more Soulmates success stories, which feel like a different type of result. When we hear from users and they say things like: "I signed up and met the love of my life", it really feels like a moment to celebrate positive customer churn.