Laundry and love might seem an odd pairing, but LG sees a natural fit in linking with OKCupid to help people find the washing machines they’ve yearned for all their lives even if they didn’t know it — and enlisting Phoebe Robinson as a “Love Guru” to tell the world.
 

LG and OKCupid created the LG Laundry Love Lab, an interactive quiz that matches people to laundry appliances based on their habits, preferences and style. Robinson will guide love and appliance seekers to the quiz via a series of social videos, distributed largely organically with some paid placements.

The stand-up comedian, actor (“2 Dope Queens”) and New York Times bestselling author (“You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain”) will join LG and OKCupid in promoting the quiz and campaign on her social channels (@dopequeenpheebs).

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Robinson was an LG laundry appliance owner before she took the gig, she said in an interview. And she’s taken the quiz herself. It matched her with the LG WashTower single unit washer and dryer combo and the LG Styler Steam Closet.

“The ventless dryer was my love match,” she said. “I am very much a person who likes to hang dry most of my clothes, which I got from my mom. So it was the perfect dryer for me.”

Robinson only got a washer/dryer for her apartment three years ago, she said. And it was love at first sight. Her boyfriend noted that she was “literally doing laundry every single day, just because I’d never been able to,” she said. “I feel like this campaign was the best of both worlds – combining my love of laundry and my love of being a goofball. This is not just for pretend. I love my LG washer/dryer, and this is like what I’m doing in my real life.”

Robinson’s longtime comedy writer Julia Shiplett worked on the video scripts, with lots of improvisation from Robinson.

Pairing LG with OKCupid was actually a natural fit, once she thought about it, said Josie Salazar, brand marketing lead for LG Electronics USA. The appliance brand – like many others in the industry – keeps coming up with new options to satisfy a variety of tastes, she said. “But we know that a lot of consumers find the shopping process pretty overwhelming. So our thought was, 'Let’s make that experience more fun.' And one of the ways to do that was to partner with an authority on matchmaking.”

OKCupid has considerable consumer insights from its years of matchmaking data on the connection between laundry and relationships, Salazar said. “One thing that jumped out at me is that singles on OKCupid who said they do their laundry themselves received over 70% more conversations than those who didn’t,” she said. “And 41% say they’re more turned on by someone who folds the laundry.”

By the way, Salazar believes that when people find that special appliance, they won’t get ghosted by supply-chain issues affecting many products. A Tennessee plant for the Korean electronics brand is keeping stores well-stocked, she said.