After exiting a long-term relationship in January, Mo Said wanted to get totally absorbed into his work at Mojo Supermarket, the small agency he founded and leads as chief creative. Dating was the last thing on his mind—until just a week after his break-up, dating app Match contacted the shop with an opportunity to win the account.

“I am going to pour myself into work,” Said says he thought at the time. “And when the work is, ‘Hey let’s talk about love and relationships,’ you are like, ‘Ah, fuck, that is the thing I am trying to get away from.’”

Subscribe to Ad Age now for the latest industry news and analysis.

But Said did not shy from the pitch—his agency won the creative account in April after a months-long review, and recently came out with a new platform for the brand that includes ads and new app functionality anchored with the tagline “Adults date better.”

The approach—which positions Match as an app for people with emotional maturity, not those looking for one-night stands—is personal for Said, 31. He struggled with the notion of entering the dating scene again out of fears that it is a superficial endeavor, and that relationships that don’t work out are seen as a failure.

Working on the campaign was “totally therapy for me because I was like dating sucks, I never want to do it again.” But the insight that adults date better because they are mature—which he credits his creative team with developing—restored his faith. “Through this campaign, I started realizing like, ‘Oh, shit, dating as an adult is better, and nobody says that, and Match’s belief should be adults date better.”

The campaign positions maturity as a dating strength by contrasting it with the insecurities that plague younger daters. One ad shows a man on a first date totally unafraid of ordering a drink with a tiny umbrella—“because you like drinks with tiny umbrellas.” 

Another spot gets right to the point: “Young love was great, but dating as a fully formed emotionally mature, human—man, that is on a whole ’nother level.” Outdoor ads carry messages such as adults date better, “because they’ve got their sh*t figured out.” 

Mojo Supermarket is also behind new functionality in the app such as a “ghostbusting” feature meant to keep people from leaving others hanging. It prompts Match users to continue a conversation with someone, or “unmatch” them, if they don’t respond to another person’s message after a certain period of time.

Said’s personal attachment to the campaign is so palpable that Match convinced him to do voiceovers in the spots. The agency tried about 30 actors, but Match liked Said’s version the best. “I’ve never agreed to do a voiceover. I’ve always been weird about that. But this is the first one where it feels like a personal story—because it is,” says Said.

Match Chief Marketing Officer Ayesha Gilarde in a statement to Ad Age said: “When we heard Mo read the voiceover, we were immediately drawn in by his authenticity and emotion. You could just tell he felt it—he’s raw and honest, and it added another layer to the film. “

Gilarde said at first the brand did not know about his break-up. But “in retrospect, Mo was his own creative muse. This is such a personal and emotional business, and when you are personally going through something similar at the same time, we were able to use it as fuel to push us to be more real and raw with the story we wanted to tell.”

Said contrasts Match’s approach with more superficial messages delivered by other dating apps, such as Tinder, which has used lines such as "Single is a terrible thing to waste.” 

COVID's dating complexities

“Every dating ad shows you hopping fences at 2 a.m. and going on these cool dates, and you are like, no I’ve got work to do, and that sounds awful,” says Said. “When we talked to people in this category they were all just like yeah, you feel like one is talking to you, no app is talking to you, no ad is talking to you.”

The campaign comes at a precarious time for dating apps, as COVID’s resurgence adds complexities to in-person gatherings. Match since May has been plugging a "vaccinated" badge that users can add to their profiles.

The pandemic situation now is much more severe than earlier this summer when brands of all kinds seized on what became known as the “hot vax summer.” But even then, Match and Mojo Supermarket leaned into the app’s positioning as a service for mature adults with a (literally) tongue-in-cheek outdoor ad campaign called “Lick Every Stranger.” The message was Match understood singles might be craving  “a good consensual hookup.” But when “you’re ready to get serious about dating with someone who’s also serious about dating, we’ll be here.”

As for Said, he’s back out there: “I am dating again and it feels a lot better,” he says. “This campaign has really gotten me out of my head for sure.”

High-quality journalism isn’t always free.
Subscribe to Ad Age now for award-winning news and insight.