OkCupid doubles down on controversial campaign with pro-choice ad

The dating site OkCupid is doubling down on its controversial inclusivity campaign with another ad that addresses abortion rights. The new push comes just months after the brand and agency Mekanism debuted the "Every Single Person" campaign, which was met with resistance by consumers, some of whom tore its ads off subway cars. The initial ads from August featured vibrantly hued images of diverse characters in sometimes fantastical situations, with words including “non-binary,” “pansexual,” “non-monogamist” and “bear” emblazoned as part of the campaign’s slogan. In September, the campaign became the star of a viral video, when a pair of people on a New York City subway car were shown tearing the OkCupid banners out from behind their casings. “This is propaganda,” one of the defacers said. The MTA later went on to ban some of those ads, citing reasons such as "too explicit" depiction of sexual activity and a ban on sadomasochism. UNBELIEVABLY BASED (Pt.1) pic.twitter.com/TcBZWmchBC— BamnDonuedo (@DamnNobueno) September 22, 2021 Despite the heated response to the campaign, this week, “Every Single Person” will resume its out-of-home run with a new pro-choice ad, which comes just days after the 49th anniversary of "Roe v. Wade," the landmark reproduction rights case that protects a woman’s right to an abortion. That right recently has come into question as the country’s conservative-majority Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled in favor of restricting abortion rights, such as last week’s rejection of a challenge against Texas’s current legislation that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The “every single pro-choicer” ad is OkCupid’s declaration of support for women’s rights, which the company said it wishes more brands would take bigger moves to support. Last September, more than 50 companies, including Ben & Jerry’s and Reddit, signed a letter opposing Texas’s abortion legislation, and Salesforce even offered to help employees based in the state relocate elsewhere. However, many large companies have yet to take any action at all. “The fact that so few companies have taken a bigger stance and said, ‘We are upset about this,’ ‘these are the measures we're going to take,’ ‘we are working with these people that we elected that are putting these insane policies in place’—those things seem to not be happening,” said OkCupid Chief Marketing Officer Melissa Hobley. “It's shameful that more companies are not even doing the barest minimum…We've seen corporate response to other things, and that's so important. It's just the deafening silence on this issue, when most Americans still support women’s right to choose, is pretty terrible.” The campaign will return to NYC, followed by cities across the U.S. and Europe. In addition to the added poster, daters on OkCupid can elect to feature a pro-choice badge on their profile, making it easier for users to match based on compatible stances on the issue and to support wider conversations about abortion. Controversy expected While the campaign introduces a new ad, Hobley said the push around LGBTQ+ inclusivity will continue as well. When the company debuted “Every Single Person,” the dating site’s first global campaign, she said she knew it would be controversial. “Fuck yeah, we're trying to normalize,” Hobley said in response to the homophobic remarks of the viral video showing ads being removed from a subway car. “Exactly, thank you. That told us that we have a long way to go, so we're going to double down, triple down. In that moment, we made the decision to turn the campaign back on.” Four of the images previously OKed by New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority for posting in the city’s subway have been banned for the campaign’s second round. “This is not the first time we have had creative banned by the MTA,” Hobley said. She added that she was surprised by the specific ads the organization chose to ban. “I think—speculating—that the MTA is still figuring out their process and their policies.” According to documentation sent from the MTA to OkCupid, the “bookworm,” “vegetarian” and “submissive” images too explicitly depict sexual activity. The “submissive” ad specifically defies a clause banning sadomasochism and the “vegetarian” image set off alarms for “erotic touching of covered or uncovered buttocks.” The fourth image banned shows a pedicured foot gripping bright red lighters in between each toe, the phrase “every single toker” at the top. Although New York State has already legalized the recreational consumption of cannabis, the MTA’s advertising policy, which was revised in November of last year, bans any reference to the substance. “The MTA seeks to maintain a secure, safe, and welcoming environment for a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and diverse ridership, including minors,” Eugene Resnick, an MTA spokesperson, wrote to Ad Age. “The MTA’s revised advertising guidelines made adjustments to the definition of permitted advertising and to prohibited advertising bearing in mind protections of the First Amendment, which updated guidelines the OKCupid ads did not meet.” The MTA’s advertising policy revision came the same week it settled a lawsuit with women’s sex toy brand Dame. The three-year lawsuit filed by the brand specifically called out OkCupid’s award-winning, Wieden+Kennedy-led “DTF” campaign from 2018. Pointing out the hypocrisy of being denied advertising rights on the subway, Dames’ legal filing states, “The MTA apparently did not apply the Policy to OkCupid or concluded that OkCupid—a dating and hookup service whose advertisements use an explicit sexual pun—is not a ‘sexually oriented business.’” Read more: MTA lets sex toys company Dame advertise on the subway. Like “Every Single Person,” the “DTF” campaign, which subverted the dating shorthand “down to fuck” by filling in the final word with phrases like “DTFall head over heels” and “DTFlea market,” was similarly controversial among certain groups, but Hobley said in a different way. “The reaction to ‘DTF’ was about that phrase,” Hobley said. “With [‘Every Single Person’], it packs a tougher punch, because it is a targeted, more singular response to LGBTQ identities. This is a normalization of lifestyle. So, the homophobia we've seen in some of this response is different from the criticisms of the other.” Despite the setbacks, OkCupid is forging ahead with relaunching the campaign. In addition to rolling out the OOH ads again, OkCupid is donating one dollar to GLAAD, the LGBTQ+ anti-defamation organization, to match each of the 10,900 likes the viral poster-tearing tweet received. The dating site will also donate $2 to GLAAD for every like it receives on an Instagram post that was published yesterday. Read: OkCupid takes 'DTF' beyond the run-of-the-mill screw. View this post on Instagram A post shared by OkCupid (@okcupid) According to Hobley, after the campaign’s original launch in NYC, app downloads in the city increased nearly 20% overall and almost 30% for users identifying as LGBTQ+. “It's so important to celebrate, not just feature, the communities and the individuals that you support,” advised Hobley. “And to pay attention to the critics and the outspoken folks against statements like this. Really pay attention to that to keep driving forward.” She added: “The data is telling us that more and more Americans are not cis-hetero and [that] COVID accelerated people thinking about who am I, who do I love, who I want to date. We have to stay humble in the learning, bold in the support.”

OkCupid doubles down on controversial campaign with pro-choice ad

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