The M14 Dating Conference 2017 hosted a number of panels, the first being the PR Panel. Chaired by Charly Lester in discussion with Robyn Exton, CEO of HER, the dating app for LGBTQ women. Joining in the discussion we had Justin Gerrard, co-founder of Bae, the dating app for black singles. Mike Bandar, owner of Toyboy Warehouse also joined us. This panel also introduced Charreah Jackson, senior editor of Essence Magazine to the Conference. Read more and watch the full video below.
The PR Panel opened with each member sharing two stories about their favourite PR Campaigns. One from their own organisations and another from another organisation.
The Dating PR Stories…
The discussion started with Charly’s views on the handling of Whitney Wolfe’s sexual harassment case. Badoo were able to use this story to launch as a truly female-empowering brand, spinning a potentially very negative story in to a positive.
Charly’s own story centred around one of our own dating apps, Spex. Prior to last year’s UK Dating Awards we were able to spin up Spex within a week. With just one e-mail to a British journalist, Charly managed to get coverage for the app worldwide, turning Spex in to one of our most successful PR stunts.
Swapping Dating Apps…
The discussion moved to Robyn, who spoke about the impact of Buzzfeed as a PR tool for HER. Buzzfeed created a piece about gay men and lesbians swapping dating apps for a week, the apps in question were HER and Grindr. This story proved to be great publicity for HER, but not so much for Grindr…
Generating Users…
Justin’s own PR story centred around the launch of Bae. They teamed up with a historically black college, Howard University, for their annual Springfest basketball game. Every attendee of the game with the Bae app would be given a ticket, and the winning ticket holder was able to make hoop shots with a cash prize incentive.
This story was picked up by Complex Magazine and seen by approximately 3 million Facebook users. This in turn generated an influx of 17,000 users for Bae.
Incredible Media Manipulation…
The PR story of Toyboy Warehouse was jokingly labelled ‘an incredible manipulation of the media’ by Charreah. Mike researched and discovered that female users has higher incomes than other users. Using that knowledge, this was spun in to a story about dating younger men and how that led women to more successful careers.
Coupled with some encouragement for journalists to get carried away, this became a global story for Toyboy Warehouse. The story even found its way to FOX News, a fitting outlet for this alternative fact.
Data Always Wins…
As an old school journalist, data always wins for Charreah. The Single American study, put out every two years by the company owning JDate and Christian Mingle, is one Charreah always looks forward to. With the data from the study Charreah has been able to put together many stories on dating.
Charreah also mentioned how good timing is always important for journalists. The day prior to the Dating Conference was a big holiday in Amsterdam. This made for a great opportunity for the numerous Dating Experts and Matchmakers attending the conference. Charreah is always looking to mine such opportunities for engagement.
To hear more from our speakers on how to get the most out of PR, and for a bonus story surrounding Carol Vordeman by Mike, watch the PR Panel recording at the top of this article.