Christians out of the mainstream

May 2, 2008 By

rejectedbyeharmonyFor over a year, I’ve been intrigued by Chemistry.com commercials that go on the attack against the internet dating site eHarmony. It’s only mildly surprising for an upstart company to go after a major player in the market by trying to squeeze out some niche audience.

But Chemistry.com goes after its competitor in a way that strikes me as somewhat self-defeating. The advertisements complain that eHarmony screens out people who aren’t happy enough or whose morals are considered suspect. Assuming that single women are the prize customers of most internet dating services, saying that your company is much less picky than another company is such an odd way to go about getting customers.

As I learned when I wrote about a New York Times story about Chemistry.com last December, the ads are part of a larger campaign targeting eHarmony for only matching single people looking for opposite-sex partners. I still think a line from that Times story was funny:

EHarmony, which is based in Pasadena, Calif., and was founded in 2000 by Dr. Warren, a clinical psychologist, has long been criticized for its practice of turning away applicants who are gay or lesbian, married or serially divorced.

Again, in the murky world of internet dating, keeping out the married dudes is not usually considered a liability — at least by the people I hang around with. Having said that, two of my dear friends who got married in October met each other through Match.com. And the bride refused to try eHarmony because they don’t match homosexual couples. So Chemistry.com is certainly tapping into something.

Anywho, Newsweek religion reporter Lisa Miller jumps into the fray with a story about a lawsuit in California accusing eHarmony of discriminating against gays. The story is engaging and informative, but also a bit condescending:

eHarmony, which has had 20 million users since its founding in 2000, promotes itself as the dating service your mother would approve of. Its implied promise: that in this world of hookups, eHarmony can get you hitched. Lately, though, the company has faced a public relations crisis, triggered both by a competitor’s clever advertisements and by a lawsuit charging that eHarmony discriminates against gays and lesbians. Founded by a 72-year-old Christian self-help author named Neil Clark Warren, the dating site requires users to answer 256 questions about personality traits and values. Then, with the help of a complex algorithm, it matches people with much in common. Warren’s philosophy is as comforting as mashed potatoes: “It is so much better to love someone who is a lot like you,” he told National Review in 2005. A company spokeswoman boasts that 236 eHarmony users marry every day.

A “dating service your mother would approve of,” “as comforting as mashed potatoes.” The truth is that eHarmony is a very profitable powerhouse. Are they really facing a public relations crisis? Maybe they are. Or maybe the Chemistry.com ads are driving people to their internet doorstep. Some numbers to quantify the statement are in order.

Among the young and the single–especially those with Blue State values–wariness about eHarmony runs high.

Again, this may or may not be true. It’s very easy — and makes the story so much better — to quantify this.

Trickier (from a PR point of view), eHarmony rejects about 20 percent of its applicants and doesn’t fully explain why. The Internet is abuzz with possible explanations, and last year a savvy competitor called Chemistry.com capitalized on these suspicions. In television ads, seemingly eligible young people face the camera and complain that they returned their library books on time or were only occasionally depressed–and still were rejected by eHarmony. These ads drew a bright line: Chemistry.com is for people who believe in love and romance; eHarmony is for squares who follow an indecipherable set of rules. An eHarmony spokeswoman explains that the site rejects people who are underage, already married or dishonest–as well as those whose answers raise flags about their mental health.

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A company that is in a position to reject 20 percent of its applicants for being married, underage, dishonest or not well mentally is not necessarily in a tricky PR situation. Yes, savvy competitors can and should try to fill a niche. This is America. The nightclub with a doorman and rope line that doesn’t let everybody in can be frustrating, but it’s usually not portrayed as having a PR problem.

Miller explains that eHarmony was first marketed with the help of James Dobson of Focus on the Family but that the two have since severed their relationship. It was this concluding paragraph that the reader who sent in the story bristled at:

A company lawyer explains that eHarmony makes matches based on unique scientific research into what makes heterosexual unions work; it hasn’t done the same kind of work on gay unions, though it doesn’t rule out such research in the future. While this explanation may be true, it also sidesteps the real problem. eHarmony was founded eight years ago by a conservative Christian who had a passionate interest in the benefits of shared values in heterosexual marriage–and he sold this formula within the Christian world. (Warren was not available for comment.) Today, the company desires to reap the economies of scale offered by a mainstream clientele, and in the wider world, shared values are not as easy to compute.

The phrasing is a bit clumsy. It could read that the “real problem” is that eHarmony was founded by a “conservative Christian.” She’s trying to make a marketing point, but the phrasing is imprecise. And even her marketing point is demeaning. In what way are Christians not a “mainstream clientele”? Even if you accept the contention (made without substantiation) that young blue staters are wary of eHarmony, what makes them more mainstream than Christians? And if eHarmony is having trouble marketing to the “wider world,” than why does it have 17 million registered users?

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Filed Under: Evangelicals, Godbeat, Journalism, People, Radio & TV, Sex, Social Issues
  • http://catholidoxy.blogspot.com Irenaeus

    I think Lisa Miller has shown herself again and again to be one of the worst journalists in the world. This piece is par for the course. No surprise Newsweek continues to employ her.

  • Michael

    I think the eHarmony story is interesting and Mollie raises interesting points. I think the writing was clumsy, but for a different reason.

    Christians are a niche market. Gays are a niche market. Products marketed to Christians risk being “ghettoized” and tainted; products marketed to gays risk being “ghettoized” and tainted. That’s what makes this conflict so fascinating.

    Can a service that was once geared only towards “Christians”–and that specific subset of religious people generally who identify as “Christian”–go mainstream? It’s a problem that Terry has identified with entertainment. Once a movie gets labeled “Christian,” it is usually the kiss of death for Mainstream audiences. There are exceptions, of course, but not many. Of course, being labeled “gay” or “Black” is also usually the kiss of death for movies, and often for other products.

    I actually think Chemistry.com’s marketing is brilliant. It identifies a vulnerability in a competitor and taps into it. I especially like the ads with the woman who says she’s sad every once in awhile, but also a good person. Yet she’s rejected. Who can’t relate to that kind of approach?

    While Christians may be mainstream, “Christians” aren’t. And there’s the marketing challenge.

  • http://chaz-lehmann.livejournal.com Charles Lehmann

    I went to eHarmony for all the reasons it is criticized by match.com and Chemistry.com.

    I don’t think eHarmony is facing any sort of PR crisis.

    And the proof is in the pudding. Jen and I get married on July 5th.

    And you can be sure that when people ask us about eHarmony, they don’t have any PR problems.

    I was happy to use a service that at least in the broad strokes matched my values and thoughts about dating. What’s said above about niche marketing is really true.

  • http://davidkearns.com/ Kearns

    And oddly I went to match.com for exactly the same reasons, I knew that Chemistry.com was for Christians and I’m not Christian so no point in being there. Ultimately the piece is flawed because on the Internet there is clearly room for an eHarmony.com, Chemistry.com, Match.com, and even Shaadi.com (Indian matrimonial website). Chemistry.com isn’t trying to be more “mainstream” they are just doing the math. eHarmony has 17mil users, so if 20% are rejected that is 4.25 million people who want an eHarmony.com type system and were rejected, likely enough to have a thriving business on.

  • Jim Davis

    Mollie is being perhaps a bit too diplomatic. I think Lisa Miller was intentionally dropping a lot of flag words to induce some Pavlovian responses. Conservative Christian! An old one, even! And look, a Dobson connection! Religious right! Homophobic bigots! Stay away, you might … well, you might catch something!

    Mollie points out that Miller doesn’t back up her claim that “blue state” residents are wary of eHarmony. Miller also doesn’t explain how shared mainstream values are not as easy to compute. She’s apparently too busy loading on the loaded words.

    Miller says snarkily that eHarmony is the site your mother would approve. But it’s clearly not the site Miller approves. I’d respect her writing more if she just came out and said so.

  • Martha

    With regard to the ads, I’d like evidence that Jane Smith or John Brown was actually rejected by Chemistry.com for the reasons stated in the ads.

    I would also note that the nice young people in the photos attached are professional actors and not actually the rejected swains. Goodness, I wonder if they were chosen for the work on the grounds of visual appeal and ability to emote tearful sincerity?

    Look, what it boils down to is this: you want to settle down and get married with the 2.4 kids? Go to Chemistry.com. (In these here parts, we’d put a small ad in “Ireland’s Own” or “The Farmers’ Journal”, listing amongst our desirable attritbutes to attract a mate our farm’s acreage of land and location as well, but that’s beside the point.)

    You want a few dates, maybe a possible relationship, but not talking big-time committment? Go to eHarmony.com.

    Different clientele, different requirements.

    It’s clever (and a bit malicious) of eHarmony.com to position themselves as the hip, new, cool site for the groovy cats and kittens by portraying Chemistry.com as old-fashioned, stuffy, rules-bound and even discriminatory.

    But it’s advertising, folks.

  • Martha

    *sigh* And here yet again is evidence of posting before engaging brain.

    The old-fashioned site that appeals to your mother is eHarmony, not Chemistry. (And as an aside, Ms. Miller obviously never met *my* mother).

    The swingin’ singles are being pitched for by Chemistry, not eHarmony.

    Point still applies – anyone who believes Company A’s advertising is 100% telling the absolute truth about the products and services of big competitor Company B is indeed in need of a very careful screening programme to pick out a suitable date for them :-)

  • http://www.washingtontimes.com Julia Duin

    Well, I was one of the 20% that was rejected by eharmony; guess I was depressed the day I filled out their 45-minute questionnaire? Who knew?
    A friend of mine who made it onto their list – and who is a committed Christian – said she had a whole year of getting men referred to her who were manic as to wanting a woman with sexual experience. And she had made it clear on her profile that she was a virgin.
    Y’all should check out the posts on an anti-eharmony site. I found one..the complaints went for pages and pages. Apparently you’re matched by a computer and not a live person and there’s all sorts of other weird things. I’d say they have a PR problem. I don’t know anyone who’s met their mate through them. Match.com, yes. But eharmony? No.

  • http://chaz-lehmann.livejournal.com Charles Lehmann

    Martha,

    I couldn’t be more confused by your comments. No one that I conversed with on eHarmony.com was interested in anything but marriage.

  • Jonathan

    Like Julia, I was one of the 20%, and now, thanks to Match.com, I’m getting married in July. I’ve always been intrigued by the criteria used to reject applicants – because it’s clearly not as simple as the spokesperson mentions. I’m neither underage, married, or dishonest. As for the mental problems, I’m a psychologist and quite self-aware about my foibles and flaws, none of which put me in the category of having “mental problems”. I think it points out the flaw of using an algorithm to compute compatibility. There’s a 1 in 5 rejection rate, some of which are probably false positives.

    Oh well, as others have said, that’s why there are options. I’ve known people who are happily married as a result of eHarmony and Match.com, so I guess you just have to do what works for you. eHarmony didn’t work for me, but it might for you, or maybe Chemistry will work for you.

    I also second the comment concerning the snarkiness of Lisa Miller’s reporting. Although personally rejected by eHarmony, I could have still written a more balanced piece than Miller.

    Oh how I miss the days of Kenneth Woodward writing for Newsweek!

  • Brian

    Michael says: “Christians are a niche market. Gays are a niche market. Products marketed to Christians risk being “ghettoized” and tainted”

    What a truly bizarre statement. Christians compose something like 85% of the population. Gays something like 3%.

    Given that Christians are the overwhelming majority of the population, ALL products better be marketed at Christians if they want to be anything other than a niche product. Of course, it is 100% true that products that are labelled “Christian” ARE typically a “niche” market in that they are actually aimed at only a small subset of Christians.

    One should also note that given the vast wealth of the nation, you only have to attract a tiny fraction of the population to make big money (see Hollywood–at $10/ticket, you only need to sell 10 million tickets to achieve “blockbuster” status of $100 million, and that’s just over 3% of the population, even disregarding multiple ticket buyers).

  • Michael

    Christians compose something like 85% of the population. Gays something like 3%.

    But self-proclaimed “Christians” are a subset of the larger set of Christians and are a niche. They may be larger than the gay niche, but they are still a niche.

  • Jerry

    Warren’s philosophy is as comforting as mashed potatoes: “It is so much better to love someone who is a lot like you,”

    I guess I don’t like mashed potatoes because this year my wife and I will celebrate our 39th anniversary. We’re classic examples of people with very little in common, at least in the beginning, but over the years those very differences have been stimulating in positive ways.

    Knowing human nature, that people lie to get a list of names is no surprise. I wonder if Julia’s friend’s experience was due to that rather than to buggy software?

  • Chris Bolinger

    Brian, apparently you have missed the fact that Michael is an expert on everything, including marketing. Alas, I am but a humble Marketing VP, so feel free to ignore my opinions…

    eHarmony does not position its product for Christians. It is not going after a niche market.

    Because of Warren’s strong evangelical bona fides, the impression persists that eHarmony is a dating service for Christians—even though the company has severed its ties with Dobson’s group

    Before Chemistry.com started running its ads and hacks like Miller started carrying Chemistry.com’s water, fewer than 5% of prospective customers would have known anything about Warren’s “strong evangelical bona fides” or had the impression that “eHarmony is a dating service for Christians”.

    What is more “brilliant” than Chemistry.com’s marketing is the firm’s ability to manipulate the press. Then again, it is not terribly difficult to manipulate the press into labeling a competitor as beholden to Dobson and those evil conservative Christians.

    Who can’t relate to that kind of approach?

    Only unenlightened trolls such as me, apparently.

  • Brian

    “But self-proclaimed “Christians” are a subset of the larger set of Christians”

    Seriously, what are you trying to say with this? Are the rest of Christians not “self-proclaimed”? Has someone else told them that they are Christians, but they don’t say so themselves?

  • Michael

    Only unenlightened trolls such as me, apparently.

    I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we all had to agree on what was brilliant.

    As the Senior VP for Marketing, you are surely aware that eHarmony did focus on the “Christian” market when it first launched. Dobson’s involvement underscores that. It advertised in Christian magazines and in the Christian media.

    You are right that Chemistry.com (which is owned by match.com, I think) has exploited that relationship through a pretty media-savvy marketing campaign, focusing on “rejects.” Like it or hate it, it’s a pretty interesting marketing approach, wouldn’t you agree? Given Chemistry.com’s growth, you’d have to concede the “rejects” campaign has been pretty successful. Isn’t “manipulating the press” actually a marketing campaign . . . getting your message out through unpaid, traditional media outlets?

  • Dave

    Brian (#15):

    I think what folks are trying to say is that, while the vast majority of Americans are (at least nominally) Christian, labeling a product or service as “Christian” is not the way to get the interest of most of them. This might be especially true in the lovelorn-matchup field, to which (it may be assumed) lots of folks turn after trying the “go to church and meet a good person” approach to no avail.

    Also, the label “Christian” has squeaky-clean implications that lots of people aren’t interested in, but lots are. At one time it was probably a way of differentiating eHarmony from much rawer sites that offer meat-market graphics, simple hook-ups and the risk of a computer virus. One may assume that eHarmony evolved away from the label to increase its potential base without changing its other characteristics. Chemistry.com is an effort to attract the market that eHarmony has had to slough off, without getting into the meat-market category itself.

  • Brian

    Dave: I agree with most of what you say (and said so in my initial comment). But that’s not what Michael said at all.

  • Dave

    I thought it was a fair re-statement of what Michael said, with more explanatory matter.

  • Michael

    It is essentially what I meant. There is a subgroup of generic Christians (that 85%) who consider themselves “Christians” to differentiate themselves from the 85% in terms of religious commitment, adherence, and culture. They use “Christian” media, seek out “Christian” businesses, and orient themselves politically and culturally with other “Christians” as opposed to the larger 85%.

  • Kirk

    Another point regarding the “Christian” marketing: as a self-described, practicing, and devoted Christian, I would likely avoid a dating service marketed to “Christians.”

    I find that in marketing parlance the term “Christian” usually means “Evangelical.”

    Finding a “Christian” plumber or mechanic is one thing. My plumber and I don’t have to agree on doctrine. It wouldn’t bother me to find out my mechanic is a dispensationalist; in fact, the impending rapture might cause him to fix my car quicker.

    Spouses, however, are a different thing altogether. Will eHarmony tell me whether its match for me believes on infant baptism? How about sola scriptura? Are there options for high church/low church?
    ;)

  • Stephen Abbott

    I think a film or service that becomes known as “Christian-Friendly” is different from one that explicitly labels itself a Christian Film or a Christian Business, and the effect on the market is different.

    Think: Passion of the Christ vs. the Narnia film(s). There’s surely elements of Christianity in the latter, but the first is explicitly aimed at a small audience of certain kinds of Christians. Huge difference.

    In fairness, being labeled as an “Anti-Christian” film sure doesn’t help with the public, either, as we saw with the Golden Compass film. Revealing the motives sometimes DOES have an effect on how the product or service is received, generally.

    As to the “Christian” label itself, it’s a niche when it’s religious in nature and explicitly so, since only a small percentage of Christmas/Easter (not regular church attendee) Christians go out of their way to buy or see Christian-themed material. But they may be swayed if they learn it’s not hostile o their values or becomes generally known as “family-/Christian-friendly”. Although to say that the vast majority of the Christian majority in the US is swayed to see only “Christian” films would be a stretch. We forget that most Christians are labeled that way because they were baptized that way, and are not churchgoers.

    I also must confess that I didn’t know that eHarmony was based on Christian principles in any way. Considering the horrid writing and obvious ax being ground in that story, I actually still do not fully accept the premise even now.

  • Steve

    A linguist once said something along the following lines: “To a foreigner, a Yankee is an American. To an American, a Yankee is a Northerner. To a Northerner, a Yankee is a New Englander. To a New Englander, a Yankee is a Vermonter. To a Vermonter, a Yankee is someone who still uses an outhouse. I’ll stop there.”

    We’re getting into the same predicament with things like “Christian” and “evangelical.” When you look at the etymology of “evangelical,” I have a hard time seeing how you can be a non-evangelical Christian. But when our differences are more important than what we share, that’s where we wind up.

  • Dave

    Michael (#20), thank you.

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  • Chris Bolinger

    eHarmony did focus on the “Christian” market when it first launched. Dobson’s involvement underscores that. It advertised in Christian magazines and in the Christian media.

    Exclusively? No. So was it a focus? No. It was one part of a multi-faceted launch strategy. If eHarmony were focusing only on the “Christian” market, then why develop positioning and messaging for the mass market and incur the risk and expense of running TV ads in heavy rotation? That’s a gamble that few investors will allow a new company to take, if that company is focusing on a niche market.

    Suggesting that eHarmony started by focusing only on (conservative) Christians or sought to start out with that niche and then (quickly) expand to a broader target market indicates a lack of understanding of what is involved in launching and positioning a company or a brand. Have you started a successful business that focuses on a niche market? Do you know how different that is from launching a business or brand aimed at a mass market?

    The press doesn’t get religion, and very few in the press get marketing…or for that matter, business basics. The latter is because very few in the press have much relevant experience with the subject matter, and most are too arrogant to be educated.

  • Chris Bolinger

    Like it or hate it, it’s a pretty interesting marketing approach, wouldn’t you agree?

    It’s a yawner for me. Positioning against a competitor is a lot easier than doing something new, which is what eHarmony did with its approach (which subsequently has been copied, as all innovations are). What usually happens over time is that firms that are innovators at their core outlast copycats and those that try to tear down the innovators.

    Given Chemistry.com’s growth, you’d have to concede the “rejects” campaign has been pretty successful.

    Time will tell. Chemistry.com, not eHarmony, has chosen to go after a niche, and it has done so in a very negative way. I don’t see that as a recipe for long-term growth.

    Isn’t “manipulating the press” actually a marketing campaign . . . getting your message out through unpaid, traditional media outlets?

    This type of PR can be a component of a marketing campaign. For my own company, I refuse to stoop to that level because ultimately it can damage your reputation and limit your growth. We take the high road because we seek long-term relationships with our customers and partners.

  • CaliOak

    Where does that leave Eharmony’s 17 million reigstered users?
    I assume many of those users are in the same spot I am. I wanted to see what the answers to my ’29 dimensions of compatibility’ questionnaire would be. So I filled out the info…and what do you know I’m the kind of person who ‘stabilizes a group’. Well this is personality test really, so I gave it the same kind of serious consideration as horoscopes or fortune cookies. Now, having been married for 2.5 years to someone I met with out resorting to something as pitiful as online dating, Eharmonay STILL send me emails about eligible matches. I have emailed them several times, letting them know I’m married. So…Eharmony’s assistance to adultery is alive and well.