• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, October 10, 2023

Navigating the online dating world is stressful. So Match and Calm are coupling up, offering free mindfulness sessions to celebrate World Mental Health Day. The promotion is based on Match’s ongoing research revealing that two out of three singles want to improve their mental health, and 81% say they engage in self-care at least once a month.

Better mental health is good for relationships, says Jennifer Spector, vice president of brand for Match. The promotion offers up to five full-length Calm sessions for free to Match members. It also includes a 40% break on Calm’s premium subscription offer and 40% off Match’s membership subscription.

She says the effort makes a nice fit for Match’s focus on “the emotionally mature dater.” Several years ago, the company began using an “Adults date better” ad campaign, and it recently ran a New York-area out-of-home campaign that posed questions about what that might mean.

“What we're trying to say with this Calm partnership is that we want you to find someone who's emotionally mature, but we also want you to be emotionally ready,” she says. “We want to help you be your best self. The tools Calm offers help people focus on themselves in very healthy ways.”

Maturity means different things, and she says the company measures core Match users more by psychographics than a specific age, although most tend to be 30-plus. “Match is for people who have accomplished things in their lives,” she says. “They are clear on what they want and don't want.”

Increasingly, they value mental health, with 87% saying that’s a priority.

“The pandemic made people invest in themselves more,” she tells Marketing Daily. “Two-thirds of the people in our survey are open to the idea of therapy and concepts like mindfulness.”

While mental health wasn’t considered a pillar of dating before, cultural conversations have increasingly normalized the idea of stress management and emotional balance.

“Maybe before, they were less aware of their own emotional needs and that they need to prioritize those when it comes to dating,” adds Spector.

She says Match has done relatively few partnerships with other brands. “This felt like a great fit for us, reinforcing our brand positioning and goal of reaching this emotionally mature dater.”

Match, which is in the midst of a large-scale turnaround effort, is seeing improvement in Tinder, where direct revenues rose 6% to $474.7 million in the most recent quarter, and Hinge, which reported a 35% jump in revenues to $90.3 million.

While Match may be the flagship brand, it now represents just a small part of Match Group’s business. The brand is now included in the company’s Evergreen & Emerging Group, which combines Match, as well as Plenty of Fish, OkCupid, BLK, Chispa and the League. It posted a drop of 5% to $174.5 million, which the company says is its best performance in a year.