Title	PAPER BAG DATING
Brand	LOVEFLUTTER
Product/Service	DATING APP
Category	A06. Events & Experiential (incl. stunts)
Entrant Company	HAVAS WORLDWIDE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency	HAVAS WORLDWIDE London, UNITED KINGDOM
PR Agency	HAVAS PR UK London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Mark Fairbanks	Havas Worldwide London	Executive Creative Director
Steve Marinker	Havas Pr Uk	Managing Director
Christian Sewell	Havas Worldwide London	Creative Director
Andy Mcananey	Havas Worldwide London	Creative Director
Andy Mcananey	Havas Worldwide London	Copywriter
Christian Sewell	Havas Worldwide London	Art Director
Jamie Craven	Havas Worldwide London	Designer
Alan Powdrill	Alan Powdrill Photography	Photographer
Christian Sewell	Havas Worldwide London	Illustrator
Andre Beato	Andre Beato	Illustrator
Christian Sewell	Havas Worldwide London	Typographer
Sophie Jones	Havas Pr Uk	Account Manager

The Campaign

Loveflutter is a dating app with a difference, you see a quirky fact first, then if you like sound of the person, then you see their photo. It really puts personality before looks. We needed to convey what loveflutter stood for, make an impact against the big hitters like Tinder and do it all for peanuts. We came up with Paper Bag Speed Dating. At events in London and New York, Loveflutter invited singletons and journalists to attend speed dating events with a difference. All participants were given a paper bag and some marker pens. They were then asked to decorate their bag however they wanted – words, poems, pictures – and then go find a date with a bag on their head! We caught the public’s attention, garnering coverage in UK and US press. People gossiped about us on TV on both sides of the pond, as well as the internet being all over us. We grabbed the world’s attention with some marker pens and a few paper bags.

The Brief

Simple really, get people talking about loveflutter and get as many singletons as possible to download the app.

Execution

We hit on the idea of transforming Loveflutter’s unique feature into a dramatic and contagious communications idea – paper bag dating. At events in London and New York, Loveflutter invited singletons and journalists to attend speed dating events with a difference. All participants were given a paper bag and some marker pens. They were then asked to decorate their bag however they wanted – words, poems, pictures – and then go find a date with a bag on their head! We knew we were taking a risk. A paper bag on the head is short-hand for ugly. We reasoned that if we could use the idea to challenge conventional thinking we could give ourselves a platform which would not only bring the brand to people’s attention but spark a conversation about relationships, dating and the role of technology.

We featured in the Evening Standard, Metro, Daily Telegraph, Mail Online, Cosmopolitan and on Five News in the UK. In the US we got even more admiring glances on: CBS, ABC News, Fox News and CNBC. We were gossiped about on The Talk feat Sharon Osbourne, Dr Drew on Call, The Steve Harvey Show and Comedy Central. We were seen by over 10 million people on TV. People wrote about us in the New York Daily News, New York Post, Time Out and NY Magazine, amongst others. The event also went viral via Buzzfeed24; Daily Dot25, Yahoo26 and TMZ. It even spawned copycat events, with Paper Bag Dating set up independently in China28 and Switzerland29. Oh yeah, and the app was downloaded 1 million times, exceeding download projections by a factor of 5 so far, with the userbase growing by over 1,000% in the weeks following each event.

The Strategy

There is no shortage of media interest in dating but when it comes to mobile apps Tinder has become an all-consuming beast; it’s almost a generic term for mobile dating. In order to capture the media’s imagination and overcome Tinder’s domination we realised we could not simply rely on Loveflutter’s differentiating feature; we needed to transform it into genuine human drama. Our research revealed two truths; 1) the media is ravenous for new dating trends and 2) consumers truly are ready for an app which combines the immediacy of mobile technology with the benefits of compatibility offered by some web based services.