What it had to solve
Online dating had soured for many — ghosting, catfishing and gaslighting left singles deflated. Match wanted to attract emotionally mature adults and bring fun and excitement back to dating.
The idea
Dating copy styled as vintage help-wanted signs: 'Fall stupidly in love with someone who's actually really smart' or 'Get really naughty with someone really nice'.
How it works
Out-of-home posters in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, created with Mojo Supermarket, adopting the style of vintage 'help wanted' signs with copy that rewards green flags instead of ignoring red ones.
What it did
The Drum named it Ad of the Day; the work reframed Match as the anti-burnout option. The source gives no campaign performance data.
Background
In May 2023, Match launched an out-of-home campaign in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, created with Mojo Supermarket, that adopts the style of vintage 'help wanted' signs. The premise: apathy toward dating often stems from emotional immaturity, and the brand set out to attract 'emotionally mature adults looking to bring the fun and excitement back to dating'.
The copy did the convincing by describing the person, not the product: 'Fall stupidly in love with someone who's actually really smart', 'Get really naughty with someone really nice' and 'Cross a borough for someone who won't cross your boundaries'. Each line courts daters who want joy back but, as The Drum put it, aren't willing to compromise on their green flags.
The strategy leaned on Match's own annual Singles in America study: fewer than half of young people felt excited or enthusiastic about dating, and 64% of online daters reported feeling burnt out — terms like ghosting, catfishing and gaslighting had become so frequent that singles were left deflated. Against that backdrop, help-wanted signage reads as a joke daters are in on: the good partner is the rare find worth applying for.
Why it lands
Every dating app promises matches; Match promised a filter, speaking to what burnout actually costs.
The vintage help-wanted format flatters the reader as a discerning applicant rather than a desperate user.
Copy lines encode maturity — boundaries, kindness, intelligence — turning brand values into street-level jokes.
Citing its own Singles in America study grounds the campaign in data the brand can refresh annually.
What you can take
When your category is the problem — burnout, ghosting, catfishing — recruiting copy wins: describe the person worth switching for, not the app.
Since then
The posters ran across Brooklyn and Los Angeles from May 2023 and The Drum featured the work as its Ad of the Day; no follow-up results are given in the source.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE