Tinder, the dating app has more than 50 million users. Of course this has attracted the PR departments of many companies. Domino's Pizza, Gillette and McDonald's in Australia have used the platform for guerrilla marketing campaigns.
But tinder is not about products but about faces - just like in election campaigns. In online campaigns it is important to be a part of networks that your target group is a part of and on tinder, this is mostly young people. Reasons enough to try out tinder as a campaigning tool. Which is exactly what Aline Tredel, a member of the Swiss green party and the National Council, did three weeks before the elections.
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| Tinder-Profille Picture Aline Trede |
Aline Tredel clearly stated she was a political candidate on her tinder profile picture. A slogan said: A green heart against right. Urging people to click the green heart, which means you like someone on the dating app. She let her profile be shown to male and female users in her constituency and clicked the green heart on every profile that was shown to her. Whenever she got a green heart back (it‘s a match!) she asked them out for a beer the next Thursday. „A beer with me“ is Alines monthly citizen meetings she holds in a pub in Bern.
Within an hour of Alines guerrilla campaign her profile was blocked by tinder. Still, Aline got a lot of media coverage in Switzerland and some of her tinder matches even showed up at the next citizen meeting. Big effect for one hour of campaigning! But what do you think about this? Is tinder an appropriate platform for politicians to campaign?
Luisa Martens
I have read the blog of Margo that was about creativity in PR and the importance of that. I would have to say that this was certainly a creative way to gain the interest of potential voters, and to even invite them to become more politically active by attending the monthly citizen meeting. Whether it is appropriate, that depends on how she has portrayed herself in her Tinder profile. I think that it is important that there was no doubt at all that this profile was meant for only her political goal, and not for "romantic" reasons. I honestly do not know what the user of Tinder is allowed to use Tinder for, so this might change the situation. But if she was not stepping over any lines that Tinder has set, I think the campaign was very smart. She did not only do this to create attention for her personally, or her campaign, but also to involve people in the democratic process. So I approve of her use of Tinder, but if it is appropriate to use Tinder in general as political platform for politicians? No I think it should remain with this one ludic action.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nine, as I think that it is a very creative and original idea to, as a politician, reach your potential voters by Tinder. When campaigning it is essential to carefully think about the audience you want to reach, how you can reach them best and which message you want to share with them. Looking to Alina Tredel’s campaign from this perspective, I would say using Tinder was very smart to reach potential young voters, to gain their interests and of course to gain lots of attention. Nevertheless, I would advise politicians to be reluctant with action like this. Since politicians often have a serious reputation and want to be taken seriously and seen as credible by their voters, the use of these types of ludic actions might damage this serious reputation.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the comments above, stating that this was a creative way to reach young voters but should however be approached with cautiousness. In other words, I don't believe Tinder is an appropriate platform for politicians and this attempt could have easily backfired, however because of its peculiarity and innovativeness it catches one's attention instead. It also helps, in terms of authenticity, that the politician in question is a young candidate who actively engages in social media in general.
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