The two sides of togetherness or C-Date vs. Parship

Harvard University's major "Grant and Glueck study" tracked the well-being of two very different demographic groups over 80 years: low-income men from disadvantaged communities in Boston and privileged Harvard graduates. Since the Second World War, blood tests, brain scans and interviews have been carried out again and again. With a clear result, which Robert Waldinger, the lead psychiatrist of the research group, puts it in a nutshell: “The clearest message that this 80-year-long study gives us is: Good relationships make us happier and healthier. POINT!"

No wonder, then, that platforms that promise to be able to help with initiating relationships are booming. For the past two years, we've been living through a pandemic of isolation that has made the isolation that followed the invention of porn video look like a happy family reunion. So golden times for Parship and C-Date. Maybe even platinum. With the right poster campaign. So let's take a look at the War of the Roses eye-catchers. Who does the better out-of-home advertising?

Positioning & Attitude Score

"Let's make dating better again" is the pious message that replaces the well-known "Every 11 minutes a single falls in love with Parship". In terms of content, Parship remains true to itself. It's about falling in love. Not about the birds. It also makes sense at first glance, because in a representative survey by the digital association Bitkom, 91% of men and 96% of women across all age groups stated that they use online dating services to get to know a permanent partner. Who wants a life without love? Logo: No:r! The only question is whether you can really be the one and only for everyone. Or whether the desire to use the poster as a moral institution shows a lot of attitude but little effect, because the various people who feel comfortable in their own skin could just as well sell cola, old mill sausage or supplementary dental insurance .

C-Date, on the other hand, stands by the fact that "casual dating" is the focus. With sayings like "I know my own bed well enough now" or "I don't wear the same shoes every day". That's honest, but today it's probably quickly interpreted by virtue guardians as a paraphrase for "warm-up to ghosting". So there is no top attitude grade. One point for clear focus, attention and business logic. Because yes, every third internet user also uses dating platforms today. For an average of 38 euros per month. Exactly here, where it gets exciting, many studies remain silent about a not entirely unimportant detail: Are men and women equally willing to pay for paid premium profiles?

Because if we assume that advertising is about selling, it would be smart to attract as many paying customers as possible. The C-Date campaign may do a better job, at least in the short term. After all, who has been more willing to pay properly for the illusion of a successful contact? Right men. This is not only proven by studies by Cambridge Ph.D Rob Henderson. But also from the fact that an entire industry has formed around the creation and management of fake profiles.

Intermediate

Parship gets a point in the attitude grade for the educational claim and an extra point for faithfulness to one's vision. Two points for C-Date for clear positioning and focus on quick impact.

VisualID

The average viewing time of a large screen is 0.7 seconds, that of a CLP is 0.5 seconds. (To get a better idea of ​​how short that is, try pronouncing the word “love” and stopping at the same time. It only works if you mumble.) Of course, there’s a clear advantage here if you don’t use language as a detour must, but can slamdunk his message straight into the limbic system.

Stupid for Parship that they didn't stick to the old formula for success. Don't hate the player, hate the game, folks: Yes, facial symmetry has been shown to influence preference, regardless of gender, especially when it comes to "mating choice". And yes, latent pornographic key stimuli still lead to higher dopamine release than images of e.g. B. turnips or tree bark. You, and especially women, think what you want, but the clean-washed blonde from C-Date is as old-school as a Dodge Charger Hellcat. Just as attention-grabbing and polarizing. And just as unwise.

This is in contrast to Parship's Ikea approach. Everyone and everyone in between will find warmth and affection here. And even if not, at least self-love and well-being. If the C-Date is a muscle car, the Parship is an e-scooter: Nobody can really object to that in good conscience without feeling like a reactionary pig.

Intermediate

Parship scores with modernity, but stays braver than a Fanta advertisement. Differentiation? Appetite appeal? It's more like that. 1 point. C-Date does what Parship grew up with, but completely forgets women as a target group. 1 point. And thus equality.

Copy

Gabriel Garcia Marques already knew that "love in the time of cholera" is no picnic, God knows. That's why it's totally commendable and also strategically quite far ahead of Parship to present itself as a transformer for an entire industry. "Stop dating - start marriage initiation institute" would be a good claim. In addition, it would be worth considering whether an additional organic seal and two or three more hygiene stickers would make the posters even more correct. C-Date, on the other hand, does pretty much everything wrong that a young, woken person thinks can go wrong: Blonde woman. bare skin. lingerie. Sexuality presented in such a way that it doesn't take any effort to suspect it of sexism. The saying somewhere between lascivious and funny, whether simply liberal and self-determined or just the pipe dream of a screwed copywriter is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

What's really good about Parship is the challenging nature of the lines. Headline = Call-to-Action is first and foremost a formula for success. Inviting to be part of the new way of doing something – always good. It is a bit questionable how many people who do not work at Parship now know exactly what to do. What should that look like, the restart of dating? Has Parship really managed to revolutionize the previous fact – very few men contact very many women on online dating platforms and very, very, very many look down the drain or flirt with fakes until they are hooked enough for premium ? If so, chapeau. And: All for love!

Interim conclusion

Parship wants nothing less than owning the complete introductory behavior and writes activating lines that invite you to participate. Two points. C-Date relies on Bondgirl Attitude like Pussy Galore and runs the risk that those interested will either switch off to pornhub straight away or wave them off in disbelief from the start.

Overall conclusion

If you compare the funds behind the campaigns, a final judgment becomes almost impossible. Because Parship's firepower is so overwhelming that even the ambition to radically change the love lives of millions of people no longer seems so megalomaniac. Therefore, instead of a verdict, a thought game: Suppose only a C-Date and a Parship poster hung next to each other in a medium-sized German city in a mediocre location - which one would probably ensure more clicks on the respective page?

Tip: Nimble vs. Gorillas – whose ads will win?

About the authorFriedrich Tromm is the founder and managing director of the creative company TryNoAgency, the self-proclaimed "unicorn makers". After working as a freelancer in over 50 well-known national and international agencies (Jung von Matt, BBDO, McCann Erickson and many more) and various international Apple launch campaigns, he now takes care of the special aspects of start-ups with his partner Stefan Nagel and 20 employees such as Doctolib, HelloFresh, Mister Spex, N26 and Scalable Capital.

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Photo (above): Shutterstock