Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Selling Love: The Business of Online Dating

Episode Date: June 28, 2025

From our Season 11 Archives, one of our favourites.This week, we explore how dating agencies Sell Love. We’ll talk about the very first dating service in history, we’ll explore one app that is more about lust than love and we’ll talk about how heartthrob Reynolds created one of the best dating commercials of the last 10 years.--------Get an exclusive 15% discount on Saily data plans! Use code TERRY at checkout. Download Saily app or go to https://saily.com/terry Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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You're so king in it. You're so king in it. You're so the influence of Terry O'Reilly. One of Plato's greatest works was titled Symposium. It's a philosophical text written between 385 and 370 BC. It was fictional, but fascinating. The basis of Symposium was a story about a group of men attending a banquet in ancient Greece. As wine flowed heavily, it led to a friendly contest of speeches

about love and desire. The guests included the philosopher Socrates, the statesman Alcibiades, and the comic playwright Aristophanes. When it came to Aristophanes' turn, he wove a story about the origins of love. Aristophanes said that, long ago, humans looked very different. They had four arms and four legs, and two faces exactly alike on a cylindrical neck. They could move very fast and became arrogant and threatening. They were also very powerful.

They were so powerful, the gods feared they might lose their dominion over humans. So to weaken them, Zeus, Greek king of gods, cut humans in two. Zeus then commanded Apollo to turn the faces of the severed humans to the side that was missing, so they would always be reminded they were not whole. so they would always be reminded they were not whole. Aristophanes said the severed humans were miserable. Each longed for their other half. From that day forward, humans have been desperately searching for their soulmate.

Aristophanes said that when you meet your other half, something wonderful happens. The two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, by a sense of desire, and they never want to be separated again, not even for a moment. Quote, love is born into every human being. It calls back the halves of our original nature together. It tries to make one out of two. According to Aristophanes,

love is the name for our pursuit of wholeness. And if we can find the person who completes us, we would be healed, blessed, and happy. Each of us is a matching half of a human whole, he said, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him. People are still seeking their perfect match. That's why matchmaking has become big business, People are still seeking their perfect match. That's why matchmaking has become big business, and it's a very competitive category.

Each dating site tries to offer a different experience. Each app tries to appeal to a slightly different audience, and each has its own marketing style. It's a very profitable industry because every single person is born single. Almost everyone in the world wants to find their soulmate. It has been a consuming desire since the dawn of time. And matching soulmate to soulmate has been a profitable business since at least the early 19th century. The business of matchmaking has evolved greatly over the years, and the emergence of the computer changed everything.

The first attempt at computer matchmaking happened at Stanford University way back in 1959. Two students decided to try their hand at matchmaking for a class project. Using a questionnaire and punch cards, they fed the information into an IBM 650 mainframe computer. They matched 49 men with 49 women. Those relationships didn't really go anywhere, but the student duo did get an A for their database computer dating idea. But the first person to successfully run a computer dating service was a woman, and she lived in London, England.

Joan Ball worked at a marriage bureau in 1964. Marriage bureaus provided introductions to single people hoping to meet a marriage partner. Joan found she had a great knack for pairing people up. She was a quick study of character and her instincts were razor sharp. Soon she decided to open her own business. Dating services were often eyed with suspicion because they offered to match men and women for a fee, and many thought they were just fronts for prostitution.

So Joan Ball gave her company a very proper name. She called it the St. James Computer Dating Service. She took advantage of time-shared computer resources because owning a computer at that time was cost prohibitive. In short order, her company became very successful because she had an unusual methodology. Joan didn't ask her clients what they wanted. She asked them what they didn't want. Joan believed that what people didn't want in a mate was far more revealing than the usual

tall, dark and handsome responses. Matching people according to their do-not-want list was a remarkable insight. As her business was growing, she ran into a difficult problem. No newspaper would take her advertising because, of course, dating services were still seen as unseemly. So Joan made an interesting decision. She advertised on pirate radio stations. Back in the early 60s, the BBC wouldn't broadcast rock and roll.

So some enterprising disc jockeys moored ships just outside British territorial waters, where they couldn't be arrested, and beamed rock and roll back to a very ravenous audience. The pirate radio stations happily took Jones' ads. It was an interesting bit of matchmaking in itself as pirate radio stations were seen as bold and exciting and advertising on pirate stations made Joan's dating service feel bold and exciting. One year later some students across the pond at Harvard took note of Joan Ball's success

and started their own computer dating service. They called it Operation Match and gave their fellow students a 75-question survey that asked their romantic and social preferences. Then a team of secretaries, or tech-retaries, transferred that information onto punch cards and those cards were fed into an IBM mainframe computer. Operation Match hoped for 8,000 customers. One year later, in 1966, approximately 90,000 college students sent $3 and a completed questionnaire to Operation Match. With that,

computerized dating never looked back. A few years before the internet became commercialized, my company, A few years before the internet became commercialized, my company, ironically named Pirate Radio, hello Joan Ball, was asked to produce commercials for a dating service called telepersonals. You would create a profile using your voice, and people could listen to other profiles in different categories using prompts on their telephones. Unlike a computer dating service, telepersonals let you decide on their telephones. Unlike a computer dating service, telepersonals let you decide on a potential match. You can spend your entire life looking for the perfect woman

and a big how do you do to you man. Hello. Are you looking for a man who likes classical music, walking in the rain, candlelight brunches with seasonal fruit and two hanky romance movies? No. Of course you're not. Obviously I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Excuse me. Yes. I've noticed you've been staring at me. Is there something you want to ask? Yes,

there is. Don't hold back. Would you like fries with your order? Fortunately, I call telepersonals, an exciting way of meeting new and exciting people like myself, with over 2,000 personal ads from people looking for long-term or casual relationships. It's free to listen to ads 24 hours a day and connecting with someone by leaving a message in their voice mailbox costs less than a beer. Here's my message. Hi this is Norm. I'm a man. If you're not, call me. Not only did I get responses, I was able to pick and choose. Hi this is Daphne. I like walks in the rain. Yes no maybe. This is Donna. I like candlelight brunches with seasonal fruit. Rain check. Hi this is Brandy. I like body painting. Call me. I'm in love. It's that simple. Connect with telepersons.

With the arrival of the internet, the like body painting. Call me. I'm in love. It's that simple. Connect with telepersons. With the arrival of the internet, the world of computer dating changed forever. But it would take a certain movie to normalize the idea of online dating. I turn on my computer. I go online. Welcome. And my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words. You've got mail. The movie was You've Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

In the film, they meet in a chat room and start messaging each other. They realize they have a chemistry and eventually develop enough trust to meet in person. It wasn't online dating per se, but it did show people that finding a partner on the Internet was indeed possible. You've Got Mail is credited with removing the stigma from online dating. With the stigma of online dating removed, digital technology kicked open the doors to the dating industry. Way back in 1994, when only 5% of the public had internet access, a company called Match.com was born. The idea for Match.com came from the frustration the founder experienced when he was looking

for a date. He was paying $2.99 a minute on a $1.900 telephone dating service. Then it occurred to him that he could create an online database of personal classified ads and could do it quicker, anonymously, and at a much lower cost. Match.com went live one year later and was one of the first dating services to launch on the web. The site offered a number of interesting features. First, unlike Operation Match that was geared towards men, Match.com was promoted as safe and welcoming to women.

It let you quietly browse people's profiles. Match.com also gave its members anonymous email addresses that forwarded to their real accounts, which was a big draw for women. It quickly became one of the biggest and most successful dating sites on the web and still is today. Match.com does some very interesting marketing. A recent series of ads was one of my favorite advertising campaigns last year. A recent series of ads was one of my favorite advertising campaigns last year. Actor Ryan Reynolds' marketing company, Maximum Effort, created the ads. Now why did Reynolds create those ads?

Because Ryan Reynolds sits on the board of Match.com. His idea was very funny. It was called, A Match Made in Hell. In the first commercial, a bored-looking Satan gets an alert on his smartphone. He's matched to someone on Match.com. Satan meets his match under a bridge on a rainy day. Satan? Hi. Two-zero, two-zero?

Please, call me 2020. The attractive woman he meets personifies the year 2020, which was, of course, one of the worst years in history because of the pandemic. We see Satan and 2020 having a picnic in a deserted football stadium. We see them working out in an empty fitness gym. We see them enjoying a movie in an empty movie theater. We see them stealing toilet paper from public washrooms. And we see them taking a selfie in front of a dumpster fire.

As the commercial ends, Satan says, I just don't want this year to end. Who would? Then the Match.com logo appears with the words, make 2021 your year. It was very well done, very funny, written and produced by Ryan Reynolds himself. There was one other interesting aspect to the commercial.

Ryan got his friend Taylor Swift to let him use her hit song, Love Story. As of this writing, the commercial has 11.8 million views. Oh I've dated much worse guys than him, much worse. I mean at least he's famous. In the follow-up testimonial ad, Satan and the Year 2020 talk about their perfect match. I started by using the match custom search filter. I filtered out joy, happiness, toilet paper, and reason.

Boom. Satan and 2020 can't take their eyes off each other. She gets me. That's the best part. You meet someone that takes time to see beneath the surface. Of the earth. It's just a perfect match. That ad has almost 7 million views.

A number of years ago, I was directing a commercial that starred a sitcom actress. Between takes, she told me she had a new love in her life and she was very happy. When I asked her how they met, she said in an online dating site. That was surprising to me. I just never, for a moment, thought that a Hollywood celebrity would need a dating site to meet people. But maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Dating, especially later in life, is no picnic, celebrity or not, which explains why millions of people turn to dating sites to help them meet

people. As a result, there are numerous specialty dating sites. There is a Christian Mingle dating site. There is FarmersOnly.com for rural matchmaking. There is Personals.com, spelled P-U-R-R-sonals, a dating site for people who love cats. There is a site called Bristler.com, a dating site for men with beards and those who want to stroke those beards. There is a site called paranormaldate dot com for people who share a fascination of strange unknown forces.

If you have a love of the sea, there is a site called sea captain date dot com where you can find your first mate. For those who like to be one toke over the line, there is a site called my420mate.com. And until recently, if you were looking for a soul mate with orange hair, a bright red nose, and oversized shoes, there was a site called clowndating.com. Slogan, everybody loves a clown.

Let a clown love you. I have to roll that one around for a minute. We'll be right back. The last time I was in Italy, it was, as always, glorious. The people, the food, the countryside. Bellissimo. Loved it all except wandering around trying to find public Wi-Fi spots. Then trying to decipher the passwords. You know what I wish I had? An eSIM from SAILI.

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Some regional exclusions apply. Learn more at turbotax.ca slash business tax. Approximately one in ten people have used an online dating service. There's something for everyone no matter what your preference. The online dating industry is valued at over three3 billion in Canada and the US and is worth close to $7 billion globally. With smartphones, dating sites became mobile apps, and with apps, the field opened further. Enter Tinder.

The name Tinder came from the notion of creating a spark. The original name was Matchbox, and the I in the Tinder logo is a lit match. The founders of Tinder had an idea. They wanted to make their dating app function like a game. First, Tinder only exists on smartphones. The most identifiable aspect of Tinder is the swipe. Users see a photo and a profile of people nearby and either swipe right for a like or swipe left for a nope.

That swiping idea came to one of the founders one morning when he stepped out of the shower. His mirror was fogged up, so he swiped left and right to see his face. In that moment, the iconic Tinder swipe was born. The way a potential match happens on Tinder is when two people right swipe each other. The mutual like then prompts you to either send a message or keep playing. The keep playing phrase underscores the game nature of the dating app. It imports your profile from Facebook and users can play it in short bursts whether they're looking for a date or not. Some of its advertising suggests in no uncertain terms that Tinder is often used for quick hookups,

not long-term relationships. In this commercial, we see a college-aged couple on a date and they seem to have a lot in common. Why do tomatoes keep trying to convince us that they're a fruit and not a vegetable? Why? I know, it's like they know they're not a fruit so they try extra hard to fit in with other fruits.

Oh, it's embarrassing. Like, I'm actually embarrassed for tomatoes. They think they can somehow trick us by calling themselves, like, grape tomatoes. What kind of tomatoes? Cherry tomatoes! Like, who are they kidding? I mean, you're not a fruit. Just be yourself! I'll be right back. Then the gal excuses herself from the table. While she's gone, the guy gets a Tinder match alert.

He decides to quietly sneak off from his date, but then inadvertently bumps into her at the door. And they realize they are both ghosting each other to make a quick Tinder hookup with other folks. In another commercial, a man finds a sketchbook on the ground that says, Property of Veronica. He reads it on the subway. He reads it at the gym. He reads it at home and becomes more and more infatuated with this mysterious Veronica.

Then he realizes something. She has drawn a picture of a beautiful building in the city, and he knows where it is. He goes to the building, and sitting there on a park bench is a woman. He sits beside her and asks, Are you Veronica? As he hands her the sketchbook, she says, Oh my God!

Next, we see the new couple sitting across from some friends at a restaurant. One friend says, That is the most romantic friends at a restaurant. One friend says, That is the most romantic story ever. Then the other friend says, I do not believe a word of that. It's true. It's 100% true. Come on. Did we lie to you? But it's the last frame that delivers the message.

It says, Tinder. Tell whatever story you want. The commercial appears to tell Tinder users that it's okay to fib on the app. Quick hookups, fast swipes and license to make up your story on Tinder, it truly does treat dating like a game. Well, it's working for Tinder. Launched in 2012, users made over 1 billion swipes in just the first 17 months. In 2020, there were over 66 million Tinder users, and 6.7 million of them pay for special subscriber benefits, like Skip the Line, where your profile can be at the top of the list in your neighborhood for 30 minutes. Revenue in 2020 was 1.4 billion dollars.

There is another dating app that has an interesting marketing angle. There is another dating app that has an interesting marketing angle. It's called Hinge. It builds itself as the dating app designed to be deleted, meaning it will help you find your soulmate, then you can dump the app. The founder of Hinge, Jordan McLeod, was a Harvard student who had lost the love of his life due to his drinking problem, so he didn't like to go to bars to meet people now that he was sober. So he decided to create a dating app for people like him.

He managed to raise some seed money, but building an app is an expensive proposition. He and his developers were quickly running out of money. So McCloud decided to throw a Hail Mary pass. He wanted to take the company's last $25,000 and throw a big launch party. They were just waiting for the Apple App Store to accept Hinge's application. But days before the party, Apple rejected the application. It was devastating news, and most of the party money had already been spent. McCloud began to panic.

He was throwing a huge launch party without an app to launch. Then the morning of the big party, Apple sent an email saying it had accepted hinge That evening thousands of guests partied alongside DJs and enjoyed food and drink The day after the party hinge was all the rage The dating app employs a funny advertising strategy It has a mascot named hinge, which is a furry version of the app icon. In all the commercials, Hinge is killed, playing off the theme that Hinge is the app that is designed to be deleted.

Because when our users hit it off, we bite the dust. And we're thrilled to death about it Hinge the dating app designed to be deleted hinge says it wants people to root for hinges demise the dating app even put up a billboard and Encourage people to vandalize it a wink to hinges goal of getting deleted as A direct result of the Design to be Deleted advertising campaign, Hinge downloads jumped by 45%. The site got a big bump when it was revealed that presidential nominee Pete Buttigieg used Hinge to find his husband.

Hinge now has over 5.5 million users and revenues over $5 million. And here's a lovely PS. Launching Hinge helped Jordan McCloud get over his heartbreak. One day, he was being interviewed by a journalist who told him that she, too, had lost the love of her life and regretted that it was now too late to rekindle that relationship. MacLeod took that story to heart, then took action. He flew to Switzerland where his old love was now living and working.

It had been seven years, and she was to be married in one month's time, but she agreed to meet him for a coffee. Within a few days, the wedding was off and she and McCloud were back together, proving once again that love hinges on taking chances. It's hard to contemplate the impact of dating sites. eHarmony claims it is responsible for 80,000 marriages annually and that someone finds love on the site every 14 minutes. Match.com alone has introduced more than 10 million couples

who have then gone on to have millions of babies. Selling love, or lust, is a fascinating challenge. Do you make it romantic? Do you make it quick? Do you make it meaningful? Or do you make it a game? The answer appears to be yes. There is a dating site for just about everybody out there. Match.com is now the 800 pound cupid in the dating industry, having gobbled up nearly two dozen dating sites,

including Tinder and Hinge. It enjoyed revenue of just over $2 billion last year, because love in the time of COVID has made online dating surge. Pandemic or not, there will always be people searching for their other half. Searching for that special person to complete them. And in that search, there is money to be made when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the TearStream mobile recording studio.

Producer Debbie O'Reilly. Sound engineer Jeff Devine. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian LeFevre. Research Abbey Forsythe. If you liked this episode you might also like Put it Between Your Knees and Squeeze. Marketing a Fad. Season 7 Episode 1. You'll find it in our archives wherever you listen to podcasts.

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at TerryOInfluence. See you next week. Fun fact, Joan Ball, who pioneered matchmakingmaking never married.