OkCupid: A case study on positioning strategy

A friend of mine has been talking a lot about his dating situation currently, namely the experience through dating apps. It got me thinking about how rampant swipe culture is these days, and what dating apps are doing to position themselves. So, I took it upon myself to dig in.

I started with taking the top dating apps and looked at how they tried to differentiate themselves, beginning with taglines:

• Tinder: "Swipe Right"

• Hinge: "Designed to be Deleted"

• Plenty of Fish: "Dating For Grownups"

• Coffee Meets Bagel: "Quality Over Quantity"

• Match: "Adults Only"

• Bumble: "Women Make the First Move"

• OkCupid: "Dating Deserves Better"

Great, so they all try to hone in on consumer pain points--namely around how exhausting online dating can be and the different variations to why dating might be exhausting. That makes sense.

A common theme of being exhausted by dating is not being able to find the right people you want to find. So, I dug into how each of these apps work to help you find the right kind of person. Not surprisingly, all of them feature swiping.

A mini history lesson: Until Tinder came into the scene and blew up the dating app world by storm with swiping, no one had thought to gamify dating apps. After all, people were looking for their life partners, right? Gamification (in this case, the swipe) changed the game. Busy people leading busy lives wanted instant gratification. The world around them was filled with ways to keep them interested, and dating apps suddenly became no different. For an app like Tinder--originally created for the basis of hooking up--this strategy around instant gratification made a lot of sense.

Pretty soon, everyone wanted in on the swiping. One by one, every dating app switched their models to include swiping. With the advent of swiping and quick decision making came less room for info. Profiles now had a split second to catch someone's attention, and that usually meant bare bones info and a flashy picture.

I then analyzed and categorized these dating apps based on how they show you matches you can then subsequently swipe on.

I added in human matchmakers for reference on this chart. But for where I'm going next, I'm going to double click on OkCupid here. You'll notice that I've categorized them in parentheses, because that is the way that they used to play in to really differentiate themselves.

OkCupid gained traction because there was an opportunity to have people curate their own best matches that go beyond a few pictures and a couple of eye-catching phrases. They did this through having you answer a bunch of questions and indicate how important those questions were to you and how important answers to those same questions would be for a potential partner. Through the questions, they would come up with a match % that you could find people based off.

Everyone else was doing random or curated-but-hidden-algorithm matches, meaning the user would get shown either random matches, or matches that the app believed they might like based off basic information. There was no way for users to browse based off the culmination of deep information on what they knew they cared about. That's where OkCupid became powerful: They were one of the few that encouraged writing long profiles and taking the time to answer questions, because each question would get you closer to someone else who also felt the same way. They were uniquely positioning themselves by offering self-serve curation through deeper info on each person.

But when the swipe craze came around, instead of hanging on to their differentiator, OkCupid seemingly panicked. Every swipe app around them was growing like crazy. Swipe culture was becoming a major fad and became the prominent feature in dating apps. After years of watching this frenzy, OkCupid decided to ditch browsing for swiping. They fell into the same kind of format: Swipe right to like, left to pass. And if you mutually liked each other, messaging could begin.

By changing themselves to the same swipe format, OkCupid left behind one of its main differentiators: the ability for users to dig deeper. Profiles were now shortened for swiping, and the ability to browse by match % was lost. For the segment of daters who might've wanted something a little different, there were now no major dating apps that didn't do an instant gratification type of swipe format.

In a way, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, the majority of top dating apps being discussed here (Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish) are owned by Match Group. It's no wonder they all have very similar experiences. But when it comes to meeting the needs of different segments of users, it's important that each brand can operate uniquely and speak to each of their audiences. Why would one user choose Bumble vs. Tinder? Why would another want OkCupid over Hinge?

I get it. The swipe craze took over and proved itself insanely popular. But I would argue that what these companies failed to see is that it's not that swiping took off; it's gamification. Gamification: To keep peoples' shortening attention spans in the digital age engaged and interested and coming back for more.

What do I think OkCupid should've done? I strongly believe they should've leaned into that differentiator of really getting to know others on a deeper level. If the name of the game is to gamify, there are still ways an app like OkCupid could've achieved that, such as:

• Showing matches by custom groupings (eg - people who are also into the same hobby).

• Gamifying the questions, like having interested people answer the same new question and revealing the answer simultaneously.

• Creating quizzes on what type of personality you have and allowing people to search by personality type.

When everything around you is trending a certain way, it's not always better to jump on the bandwagon; There is merit to ensuring your positioning is unique and appeals to a separate audience. Instead of purely following trends, it's worth taking a step back and asking why a trend works, and how or if it can work for you. In the case of OkCupid, they could've found a better way to gamify without losing their core differentiator of getting to know others on a deeper level.

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