A telephone dating company is venturing on to TV for the first time
in an effort to shake off the sleazy image that dogs the matchmaking
market.
The move, by Canada’s Voice Courier, marketed in the UK as Connections,
follows the appointment of Davies Little Cowley Fiddes to handle the
creative work on its account.
It coincides with a doubling of the company’s UK adspend to pounds 2
million for the coming year. Media buying is handled by Frontline
Media.
It also marks a change from the current arrangement, whereby the company
has produced its creative work in-house since Connections was launched
through Bates Dorland two years ago.
The aim is to bring Britain more closely into line with North America,
where phone dating is more highly developed. Tom Rand, who heads Voice
Courier in the UK, said: ’The British market could be 30 or 40 times its
current size.’
Don Cowley, a Davies Little partner, said: ’About 20 per cent of the UK
population are interested in dating so it’s a potentially very
profitable market. The problem is that people are either nervous or
intimidated by phone dating because it hasn’t been marketed very
well.’
The agency is working on a TV, national press, poster and radio campaign
to break in January. It will attempt to position Connections alongside
the more well-known and successful dating agencies with broad-based
advertising that will appeal both to fun-seeking youngsters and older
people wanting serious relationships.
’This is a perfectly respectable product that can be marketed just like
any other brand,’ Cowley added. ’That means convincing newspapers not to
run the ads alongside the personal columns or TV companies to consign
the commercials to late-night ghetto slots.’
