Sarah Willersdorf – What brands can learn from online dating

Summary:
Sarah Willersdorf in her speech effectively relates the online dating to
marketing and branding. She grabs the attention of the audience, speaking about
the different brands like Tesla Model S, Patek Philippe Watch and the four
seasons and then emphasizes that people get attracted to brands just like they get
attracted to people instantly. She backs up her statements with fact that over 40
million people are using the online dating applications. This generation which
enjoys freedom of choice, better connectivity and greater access to information
makes the market place more fragmented and more segmented with huge number
of brands competing with each other. She quotes that the key to growth is the real,
intimate and meaningful connect that the brands make with its consumers. She
states that the three basic attractions- clear not coy, give what they want, get naked
spelled out in dating can also be used for branding.
The facts that online dating is quite frank, dating profiles feature content
in an appealing manner presenting themselves and the desired match clear and
they have limited effective information are portrayed into branding. It suggested
that the consumers want the brands to be the same- clear, data driven and concise.
The brands can be more successful by learning from the data, increasing the
statistics and applying scientific methods to make the product more appealing.
She compares the consumer choosing a product to an individual choosing a
profile on the dating application. According to the statistics stated, on an average
a profile gets viewed for about 2 – 5 seconds wherein here, the products need to
more appealing to compete with huge market of brands and sub brands targeting
the same consumers. The variance in interests of men and women in viewing a
profile is mentioned which depicted the use of targeted marketing strategy. She
finally suggested that the information provided to the customer in the course of
marketing, needs to be simple, shareable and sexy.
View:
The speech is very insightful and suggests to elicit an emotional response through
a carefully communicated first impression. Self-branding through dating
applications is compared to branding of the products in the market.
Of late, the competition in the market is escalating with various new brands
featuring different products with different specifications. The three basic
principles of branding as stated in the video, if followed, helps the product to
reach to different consumers and make its stand in the market. The example
mentioned about the top dating applications having an interface so simple like
swipe left or right to make a choice makes it evident that the product information
delivered to the consumers need to be simple and precise, for it to reach different
segments of market. The distinct interests of men and women mentioned in the
video, as in men inclined to the feature and women inclined to the character
implies to the point of difference and point of parity in different segments of the
market. Therefore, it suggests market segmenting and effective way of promoting
brand.