How do we use the introduction of a “Registered Voter” profile badge to create buzz for OKCupid (and increase voting registration)?

OKCupid’s mission is to help people connect on what matters. Clients answer a robust set of questions to create a much more in-depth personal profile that reflects what’s truly important to them. And it turns out voting really matters to them. Like, a lot.

The approach of the 2020 election created the perfect opportunity for OkCupid to spark buzz and drive account activations while driving young people to polling stations.

Its "Registered Voter" badge had launched, but with little celebration. The brand needed to spice up interest and engaged our creative agency to light a fire under the initiative.

The objectives were simple:

Drive buzz, brand awareness/affinity

Breakthrough the noisiest category at the noisiest time (politics during the US election)

Drive account reactivations

Drive voter registrations

Show that flexing your democratic right is the sexiest thing you can do during the 2020 US election by underscoring how UNSEXY throwing away your civic duty is.

We called on the American public to register to vote with a mockumentary called "Cockblocker". The 60-second spot follows the lives of two chicken farmers whose job is to keep the hens away from the cockerel. In the lead up to the election, their hens have been watching a lot of news about alarmingly-low voter turnouts. And they're not impressed. It gives the farmers an idea—hang a sign around the cockerel's neck reading: "Not registered to vote." Sure enough, it's the perfect solution to keeping the hens away.

Unregistered voters are 63% less likely to get a match on OkCupid, according to brand data.

Our insight that voting makes you sexy is grounded in some seriously hardcore data.

OKCupid’s internal stats showed that registered voters are 85% more likely to get a message from other users, and 63% more likely to get a match. So voting

is hot, statistically speaking.

So, it is true of the reverse: Not registering to vote was actually one of the biggest turn-offs in America during the election..

Our message was crafted to reach young, savvy individual voters in the Gen Z and Millennial demographics.

And the approach was to hit 'em everywhere they live: On social media via the brand's most popular channels Twitter and Instagram and YouTube, with humor.

We worked with Sanctuary Content to cast two incredible improv actors and shoot over two days on a chicken farm in Salt Lake City.

The 14-day dash from casting to live may have been scrappy, but the production was anything but. A skeleton crew with remote creative direction managed to sculpt a cinematic masterpiece with humor at its core to mobolize countless Americans to the polling stations.

It went live on OkCupid's social channels including YouTube, Twitter and Instagram and a paid push.

The target scale was North America, but the category-busting nature of this campaign made it travel across borders, making global headlines.

+600M in earned media, capturing headlines and press/news show attention across the country.

Thousands of account reactivations (a major success metric for OkCupid).

2X Twitter mentions compared to average benchmark—HIGHEST brand mentions on platform for entire year of 2020.

+60% increase in mentions of OkCupid on Instagram—smashing average benchmarks.

x3 (a solid tripling) of mentions of voting language (voting, vote, voter registration) on OkCupid profiles—a clear indicator of a change in behavior to amplify users' intent to register to vote and encourage others to do the same.

Majorly positive social sentiment.

Huge spike in brand affinity.

Melissa Hobley, CMO at OkCupid: "I’ve worked with many world class agencies, but this might be the most nimble and powerful at once. Their ability to enable a brand to be culturally relevant and cut through is incredible. The group of incredible creative talent will work hard and bring humanity to a brand."