The Scoop: “Funny We Met On Hinge” is the dating app’s newest ad campaign that emphasizes the raw and intimate aspects of finding true love in the modern age. Both funny and heartwarming, the ads remind people to put faith in Hinge and its belief in real, vulnerable connections.
Hinge — the dating app “designed to be deleted” — recently released seven commercials that showcase the funny, sweet, and unconventional love stories of seven couples who met on the app. The ad campaign, called “It’s Funny We Met On Hinge,” is not only refreshingly real, but surprisingly intimate.
Dating apps tend to sell ideas rather than facts. Someone could find the love of their life on an app, or they could get swept off their feet by a gallant lover. But “It’s Funny We Met On Hinge” is firmly planted in reality. Sure, true love can be as airy and fairytale-like as other brands claim, but it’s usually accompanied by awkwardness, nerves, fear, and self-doubt, too. Why pretend it isn’t?
It’s a shrewd marketing move, as the awkward beginning of a relationship may be the most relatable, universally-experienced part of dating. The “It’s Funny We Met On Hinge” ad campaigns convey intimacy in all definitions of the word. We’re given a rare glimpse into these couples’ relationships, and their vulnerability is refreshing for a dating app commercial.
The Ads Highlight Relatability
Any love story, regardless of how it begins, can be a success story. Some couples featured in the Hinge commercials had known of each other for years before connecting on the app, for example. Others had focused on their own personal journeys before joining the app. The love each couple shares oozes through the screen, but just as powerful is how each couple seems relaxed and confident around each other.
“Rarely do we experience fairytale beginnings,” Jackie Jantos, Hinge’s chief marketing officer, said. “These stories resonate because they are real and honest.”
The candy-coated sheen of the average dating app commercial is missing from this ad campaign, but it’s for the better, because each couples’ chemistry shines brightly enough on its own. “These couples’ stories are deeply personal — and illustrate how dating is rarely a perfect, linear experience,” Jantos explained.
The app’s assurance that it is “designed to be deleted” is in stark contrast to other business-first dating apps. Hinge undoubtedly has a bottom line, but that doesn’t mean it has to point it out with big, shiny arrows. It emphasizes the humanity of dating over the dreamy, fairytale ideals that rarely exist.
The “It’s Funny We Met On Hinge” ads are insular and intimate. Some of the love stories featured give the impression they were filmed in a couple’s home, surrounded by their furniture and personal items. Coziness is clearly the vibe Hinge is going for; other couples are interviewed in diners over coffee, in the open trunk of a station wagon, in the back row of an empty theater, and even on someone’s mussed bed.
We get the impression that these are real people sharing their real love stories, and that when they’re together, they feel like the only two people in the world (or in the diner, the car, or the theater).
It’s a refreshing reminder that love doesn’t always look or feel like a fairytale. In this way, it’s reassuring: Maybe true love can be as ordinary as two people sitting in the back of a station wagon or in a diner. Maybe love really can be found by downloading an app and creating a dating profile.
Combatting Dating App Fatigue
Some people swipe through dating apps until their thumbs are sore, which leads to all-too-familiar dating app fatigue. “What’s the point?” is often uttered by jaded love-seekers. But Hinge wants to remind people that love can strike at any moment. Even, say, on a dating app, where someone can make a genuine connection within just a few minutes.
The executives behind dating apps undoubtedly want to encourage clicks, swipes, in-app conversations, and anything else that keeps users on the apps and interacting with ads or buying premium subscriptions. Hinge claims to have a different goal. Jantos said that the brand aims to “help people get off the app and into great dates.”
Dating apps have reigned supreme for over a decade. The last word anyone expects to associate with a dating app is “authenticity,” what with the prevalence of catfish, AI, and bots. But “It’s Funny We Met On Hinge” is the definition of authentic. It shows real couples talking about how they first met — or, in some cases, reunited — through the dating app.
And in today’s AI-generated world, it’s refreshing to hear real people talk about their dating app fatigue. “I was very anti-dating apps,” one woman said, looking up at the man she met through Hinge. In another commercial, the same woman says, “I didn’t really think that you could find a genuine connection on a dating app.”
“We like to honor the beauty and imperfection of finding love.”
Jantos said, “We like to honor the beauty and imperfection of finding love.” In one commercial, a woman talks about how meeting her partner without Hinge would’ve had a much different outcome. “I don’t think it would’ve been romantic,” she tells her partner, who nods his head in agreement. “He just wasn’t my type.”
Other couples’ stories followed non-traditional timelines. One woman mentioned how she grew up next door to her current boyfriend, but that it wasn’t until “six or seven years in the future” that they finally connected on Hinge.
Hinge assures people that they can make every kind of connection on the app. They can reunite with someone they once knew, finally cross paths with someone they’d admired from afar, and turn over a new leaf with a fresh relationship. “Casting was centered around couples whose paths knowingly or unknowingly crossed paths in person before ultimately connecting on our app,” Jantos explained.
“You’re always crossing paths until the string kind of brings you together,” one couple confirmed in the commercials. The woman who didn’t initially believe in dating apps said, “I definitely felt like there was a force pushing us together.”
The Loneliness Epidemic
In 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy officially declared loneliness to be an epidemic. “People began to tell me they felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant,” he wrote. Murthy concluded that there was (and is) an epidemic of loneliness and social disconnection that does not discriminate when it comes to class, finances, or age.
It’s safe to say that more people than ever are tapped into their social media presences, which has only contributed to this rising feeling of loneliness. Being active online is all well and good until people look up and realize they’re all alone.
Dating apps have only compounded this loneliness.
No matter how squeaky-clean an app’s reputation is, there’s no denying that swiping “yes” or “no” on someone based on their appearance alone is going to lead to hurt feelings and bruised egos.
Dating apps are a competitive world, where the ratio of men to women seems to widen by the day. Someone is almost always going to end up disappointed, and yes — lonely.
“It’s Funny We Met On Hinge” is a refreshing spin on the cliché “yes, you can find love on an app!” message that other apps have hawked in recent years. In the seven commercials, couples open up about their dating app doubts and even their misgivings. “I saw her and I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m matching with this girl,’ and then I did, and then I got scared,” one man said. “She’s too pretty!”
The ads are down-to-earth reminders that everyone gets nervous, everyone has doubts, and everyone has baggage. The key is to trust the process and remember that finding love really is possible … even amid a loneliness epidemic.
When the woman who disliked dating apps was on Hinge, she recognized the face of the cute man she had seen in a store a few years earlier. Despite her distaste for the apps, she knew she had to “see it through,” she says in the commercial, laughing.
“It’s Funny We Met On Hinge” offers an intimate look at what could be if people put their faith in the dating app. There might be awkwardness and a little discomfort at first, but as Hinge posits, those moments are what make the happily ever afters so satisfying — and so romantic.
You can check out Hinge’s “It’s Funny We Met On Hinge” ad campaign on YouTube.
