ASA Adjudication on Match.com International Ltd

Ad

A TV ad for the dating service Match.com stated, on-screen and by voice, "ATTENTION MEN! ATTENTION! Match.com HAS TOO MANY WOMEN! I repeat Match.com has TOO MANY WOMEN!" Cartoon images of many women in dresses and bikinis, dancing, playing the guitar and engaged in other activities, appeared in the background. The voice-over continued, "Over the years we used all of our experience as the world's biggest online dating site to create TV ads that attracted as many of the most gorgeous women as possible - and they worked. Now Match.com is overrun with hot women. Not sure if a site with millions of women is right for you? We'll even give you one week free to try it. Visit Match.com today. This predicament won't last forever."

Issue

Three viewers complained that the ad was misleading because they believed it implied Match.com had many more women than men on their database.

BCAP TV Code

Response

Match.com said they had been producing TV ads for several years and their ads were always tongue-in-cheek and sent the message that love was too important to be taken seriously.  They said this ad was a continuation of the theme and used comedic exaggeration.  They believed the ads were fun and light-hearted and unlikely to mislead.

Match.com argued that "too many" was a subjective statement, not a "claim"; they said "too many women" was not intended to imply they had more women than men on their registered site.  They said the statement was intended to highlight the millions of eligible women on their site and urge men to come and check them out.

Clearcast said they had received evidence that, both globally and also in the UK, Match.com had more women on its database than men. They believed the evidence showed that, for the UK, there were more women than men on Match.coms database. They said that, given that subscriber numbers were in their millions, they believed that was enough to substantiate the "Too many women" claim.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted Match.com's evidence showed they had registered members, who had created profiles, who could search for other members and wink for free, and also paying subscribers, who could also send and receive e-mails.  We further noted Match.com's explanation that the number of registered members worldwide could be counted in millions, although the numbers of paying subscribers was fewer. We acknowledged that whilst there were more global male subscribers than female ones, there were slightly more global female registered members and UK female registered members and subscribers at the time the ad appeared.

We noted the ad was intended to highlight to viewers the numerous women Match.com had on the site. We concluded that the claims "Now Match.com is overrun with hot women" and "too many women" were unlikely to materially mislead in that context.

We investigated the ad under CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Code rules 5.1 and 5.2.1 (Misleading advertising) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action required.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)