• by Les Luchter , August 5, 2021

Dating apps Hinge and OkCupid are targeting LGBTQIA+ singles in new campaigns.

The Hinge app, which recently added pronouns and sexual orientation descriptors, has thrown its support behind U.S. lesbian bars, said to have numbered 200 establishments during the late 1980s, and now down to just 21.

This Sunday, Aug. 8, under the campaign theme “Send a Rose, Save a Lesbian Bar,” Hinge will donate net proceeds from the sale of virtual roses on its app to the Lesbian Bar Project, a nonprofit founded during the pandemic to save the species.

Hinge users get one rose to send to other users every Sunday, but can buy additional roses for $3.99 each, $19.99 for six, or $29.99 for a dozen.

Hinge will add proceeds from the rose sales to $50,000 already committed to the Lesbian Bar Project. These “stimulus payments” will be split equally among 17 lesbian bars deemed most in need of support.

Hinge is also encouraging users to visit participating lesbian bars on their next dates. This aspect is being backed up by sidewalk signs and in-tavern "prompt cards" to encourage conversation, branded cocktail napkins, and other materials.

Locations of the participating lesbian bars range from Mobile, Alabama, Milwaukee and Seattle to two each in Oklahoma City and New York City.

CSM is the agency for the promotion.

OkCupid, meanwhile, is embracing just about everyone -- including feminists, nonbinaries, pansexuals, nonmonogamists and submissives -- in an outdoor campaign, “Every Single Person,” which just broke in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

The creative, by Mekanism, features 16 provocative images of dating couples (as shown above).

Backing up the campaign, OkCupid says it’s seen a nearly 20% increase in users identifying as nonbinary this summer, a 7% increase in users being open to nonmonogamous relationships – and an 84% year-to-year increase in daters identifying as pansexual.

OkCupid and Hinge are both owned by Match Group, which also owns the category’s dominant player, Tinder. According to figures reported in The Business of Apps this April, Tinder has 7.8 million monthly users, OkCupid 1.7 million and Hinge 1.2 million. Also on the list: Bumble, 5.0 million; Plenty of Fish, 4.2 million; Match.com, 1.9 million; and gay-specific dating app Grindr, 1.6 million. Plenty of Fish and Match.com are also owned by Match Group.