Match.com: bringing pervy munters together

Having a teenage son means that I’ve watched his body language template change from Clumsy Puppy to Eminem. As soon as he hit 13 he suddenly acquired the Manchester monkey walk, hoodies and an over-developed texting thumb. One other thing I have become used to is the slang. A real cracker is the phrase “Butterface”, when applied to girls, i.e. “She’s got nice legs, but ‘er face…!” (accompanied by a disapproving look).
That’s the thing about teenagers and beauty. Their views of what make people attractive are usually uncompromising, even amongst those who deep down know that they themselves hit some of the branches of the Ugly Tree when the stork dropped them (not a problem with those carrying my mighty genes, I hasten to add).
Desperate youngsters during my own teenage years would be assured of finding love by ads from shagfest 18-30 holidays and from dating agencies. The latter tended to feature couples in soft-focus, flouncing around flowery fields.
I was therefore muchly taken by these weird new UK TV spots for Match.com. If the agency’s brief included a clause on blasting through the social stigma attached to online dating, then they’ve succeeded in spades. It’s the implied perversity of their customers, and their varying ages and ugliness that tickles me.



My infrequent forays into Second Life has led me to conclude that most people are liars when it comes to representing themselves online. The proportion of beautiful/exotic avatars to uglies is about 1,000:1 (mine being the 1), so I wonder if Match.com has compensated for this tendency to fib online. If these new ads are saying “no matter how much of a munter you are, there’s someone out there for you”, then they’ve hit the nail on the head (a sexual kink which, incidentally, landed a bunch of gay men in jail in the UK because they enjoyed nailing each other’s bollocks to planks, but I digress).
The net result of a successful matchmaking is the loss of two customers, so I imagine that a business like Match.com’s would rely heavily on continuous advertising to replenish its lists. I therefore hope that this campaign continues, especially virally, because what the world really needs is for its pervy munters to be happy.

Agency: Hanft Raboy and Partners (USA)