Three weeks since Vanity Fair’s stinging article about mobile dating, perception of Tinder and OK Cupid have split along gender lines, suggesting a Venus/Mars reaction to the story.
Women’s levels of recommending Tinder or OK Cupid to friends dropped significantly during the month of August when Vanity Fair’s article was published. On the other hand, the two dating brands’ recommendation levels for men were steady leading up to the story’s publication, and then moved up in a positive direction once the piece went live.
Blending the gender data together, Tinder is now at its lowest recommendation levels since the beginning of March, when YouGov began tracking it in its BrandIndex service.
The dating brand with the best recommendation levels is the Facebook friend-friendly app Hinge, trending at a neutral perception level all year long. All other dating brands tracked by YouGov BrandIndex draw more negative recommendation levels than positive, with Match.com and eHarmony generating 10% more negative feedback than positive.
Omnibus: Total sample size was 1,170 adults, of which 333 have ever used online dating. Fieldwork was undertaken between August 21 - 24, 2015. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all US adults (aged 18+). The margin of error was +/-3%.