Campaigns

Dating Twitter Advice Bureau

Twitter

Social media platform celebrates singletons with branded pop-up event

17 Feb 2020

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For Valentine’s Day (14 February), Twitter launched a pop-up event in London and created a series of out-of-home (OOH) ads to show off love-related Twitter content.

Working with London-based agency Flying Object, the social platform launched the Dating Twitter Advice Bureau, a pop-up in Covent Garden, London, between 13-16 February. At the activation, attendees enjoyed a number of games, installations, and freebies, all inspired by Tweets, phrases, and memes that reflect the experience of dating as a millennial in 2020.

For example, the ‘Ghosting Graveyard’ featured a selection of epitaphs based on Tweets such as ‘Sorry I ghosted you for 6 months’. Another attraction was the ‘Wheel of Misfortune’, where guests could spin a large, wall-mounted wheel to read ‘awkward’, ‘truthful’ or ‘visceral’ Tweets.

The central piece of the activation was a game styled on the well-known ‘Guess Who?’ board game, where players could eliminate different dating stereotypes by asking questions about their physical attributes, such as ‘Are they wearing glasses?’ or ‘Do they have blonde hair?’ The characters included clichés like The Alpha, The Existentialist and The Workaholic, each illustrated to reflect their personality type.

There was also a Red Flag Tweets section, showcasing a series of early warning signs of problems while dating, as well as a ‘red-light district’ for risqué tweets and a video playing that featured UK comedian Phil Wang sharing some tips on dating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sS1FIurUKc

Attendees could request free advice from a prominent UK LGBT agony aunt and collect some Twitter-branded swag: underwear, eye masks and plastic penguins, all inspired by Tweets featured at the pop-up.

The campaign was supported by OOH ads placed in London Underground stations. Billboards at various locations on train platforms displayed real and humorous Tweets about dating and relationships.

These hero Tweets included ‘Gets Ghosted. Me: Thank you for the 15-day free trial’ and ‘Spending my Valentine’s outside a nice restaurant shouting, “WELL YOU MOVED ON PRETTY QUICKLY” to random couples walking in’.

Contagious Insight

Changing Perceptions / Twitter doesn’t have an awareness issue. According to a survey by Triton Digital and Edison Research, 92% of the U.S population is already familiar with Twitter. Therefore, the campaign’s humorous OOH billboards across London are designed to challenge negative perceptions of Twitter rather than increase user acquisition.

Twitter’s character limit (all posts are limited to 280 characters in length) means that the content found on the platform is immediate and digestible, but also rather forgettable. According to online data aggregator, Internet Live Stats, there are roughly 500 million Tweets sent every day (equivalent to 6,000 Tweets being sent every second) while a KickFactory blog piece from 2016 reports that the average Twitter user has 707 followers. As a result, a lot of the content uploaded to Twitter goes unseen and unappreciated by the masses.

With this campaign, Twitter took the opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of the witty, satirical, obscure, original and entertaining content that is posted daily to the site. Immortalising these Tweets positions Twitter as a platform that notices, appreciates and cares about the users who craft the posts that make it such a dynamic online space. This is the same strategy that brought to life Twitter’s previous activation in Edinburgh. Visit Scottish Twitter was a similar pop-up style experience, where visitors could read stand-out comedic tweets from Scottish Twitter users and enjoy experiential elements inspired by the idiosyncrasies of #ScottishTwitter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ThE2FKl-LU

Love to hate / In July 2019, Twitter updated its hate speech regulations to include language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion. This was in response to feedback from more than 8,000 responses from people in more than 30 countries, who called for hateful Tweets to be removed from the platform. In October 2019, Twitter also banned paid political advertising globally on the platform. What this Valentine’s Day campaign does for Twitter is shift the emphasis from hate to love by highlighting more lighthearted posts that reflect people’s daily lives, passions, interests, and relationships.

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Sector

Leisure and Entertainment
Media and Publishing

Brand

Twitter

Business Objective

Change attitudes

Country

Media

Events
Online video
Out-of-home
Social Media
Viral

Dating Twitter Advice Bureau