When the short film for the 10-minute version of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” came out in November, the unreleased dating app Keepler posted a TikTok of a billboard that read: “Call it what it was, Jake,” referencing the song’s lyrics and the man of the hour, Jake Gyllenhaal.

The caption claimed that the company used its entire advertising budget to make the billboard, which a user called “a waste of money.” In response, Keepler posted a TikTok of another billboard. Sarabeth Perry, Keepler’s product market manager, took to Twitter to laugh at the fact that her marketing team of two had gotten “a little too good at Photoshop.”

• “We had a lot of people ask, ‘Oh, what are the cross streets? I want to go take a picture,’” Perry told Marketing Brew. She said making the billboard look as real as possible helped it go viral: “It’s almost meta in a way,” she said. “And it increases engagement because people are staring at it loop after loop, like, ‘Is this real? Is it not? I’m not sure.’”
• The first video has 1.2 million likes and 6.3 million views, and the whole saga boosted brand awareness for the app. So in January, when a bunch of 20-something New York women began posting TikToks about dating the same man, dubbed “West Elm Caleb,” Keepler’s two-person marketing team fired up their laptops.
• “Red flags: 6’4, mustache, furniture designer,” reads its latest billboard, a clear reference to Caleb. “We were talking at 10pm at night, and it was right as it was happening, so it felt like an okay time” to post, Perry said. “If it were three days later, I wouldn’t have done it.”

By then, the story had shifted from women swapping stories to a cautionary tale about doxxing and internet privacy. Brands were advised to avoid it entirely. But those who had already posted were stuck–so what can social media managers learn from the experience?

To post or not to post, that is the question

As a social media manager, the job often requires replying quickly—and with humor—to capitalize on a viral opportunity. In addition to Keepler, the Empire State Building, Hellmann’s, City Furniture, Truly Hard Seltzer, and Peacock were among the brands that jumped on the West Elm Caleb moment.

Talk it out: Lauren Murphy, associate strategy director of social at Deutsch LA, who helps manage Taco Bell’s social accounts, told Marketing Brew that her team has a group chat where they discuss every trending item and whether they want to get involved. In this instance, she said, they decided to hold back.

• “I think like some of us on the team have seen what has happened to brands over the last decade or so, jumping in on moments they shouldn’t and we’ll often be like, ‘Hold on, let’s think about this,’” Murphy said.

Read more here, including how Keepler is thinking about how to approach viral moments in the future.—KH

Jackie Jantos has been preparing for her new role in more ways than one. With experience at companies like Ogilvy, Coca-Cola, and Spotify, Jantos is also an online dating success story: She met her husband on Match before apps changed the way we swipe forever. Now, she’s working for Match Group to help others find love as CMO of Hinge, the app that’s “designed to be deleted,” in new and existing markets.

We spoke with Jantos about her goals for Hinge in 2022, where she sees growth potential, and the importance of listening to your users.

Going international

Jantos, who grew up in Tokyo, told Marketing Brew that her life experience, as well as her work experience with global brands, has helped prepare her for Hinge’s next mission: growing its international audience. Next on her list of tasks? Finding a head of marketing for Europe.

• Right now, Hinge only captures about 2.5% of the global dating app market share, according to data compiled by Business of Apps, but Hinge claims it’s the fastest-growing dating app in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
• This year, Jantos said, the company will localize its language offerings in countries like Germany and Sweden. Right now, the app is available in those countries, but only in English.

According to Jantos, the “designed to be deleted” tagline that the brand has become known for, created as part of the brand’s first international campaign, has been working–so don’t expect a new one anytime soon. “I would be crazy to move away from it,” she said.

We also talked to Jantos about growing the app’s Gen Z audience and how she defines the company’s “social impact.” Read the full story here.—KH

When it comes to taking a stand, a majority of Americans want this year’s Olympic sponsors to make like Hilary Duff and raise their voice.

New Morning Consult data shows that nearly three in five consumers would strongly support or somewhat support companies that pulled out of the Beijing games “given China’s human rights record.” Even if sponsors remained in the games, the survey found that 55% of respondents would support those that released a “statement recognizing China’s human rights violations.”

And yet: It’s not likely brands will speak up or pull out, according to Morning Consult, as any action could “infuriate the Chinese government and consumers in the country, harming the companies’ business prospects in one of the world’s most lucrative markets, and tarnishing the companies’ partnerships with the International Olympic Committee for future Games.”

Who’s in: Top sponsors (aka those that dish out roughly $200 million every Olympics) include Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Visa, Nike, Delta Airlines, Salesforce, and Comcast.

• Per The New York Times: Airbnb and Procter & Gamble said they were committed to the athletes and the Olympics as a whole, not just Beijing’s games; Omega said its policy is “not to get involved in certain political issues”; and Intel said it would comply with global sourcing laws, but didn’t comment on the Olympics specifically.
• Nike has not spoken up on its Olympic involvement, but released a statement last year about being “concerned about reports of forced labor in, and connected to, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR),” after reports of its involvement there.

+1: Coca-Cola told the Wall Street Journal it will only run an Olympic advertising campaign in China this year.—KH

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Deloitte updated its State of the Consumer Tracker, and clocked an interesting spending trend related to Omicron: Unlike during other Covid waves, Americans’ planned spending intentions do not seem to have changed much over the past few months.

$$$: In September—post-delta, pre-omicron—the average US consumer planned to spend $5,333 over the next four weeks. That average dipped slightly to $4,686 as of Deloitte’s October update, but has barely budged since.

As of its latest survey, Americans said they expect to spend an average of $4,800 per household, the company said in a statement, with 35% of that budget allocated for more discretionary spending in categories like entertainment, restaurants, and leisure travel. The other 65% is reserved for less discretionary categories like groceries, clothing, health care, and education.

The catch: Spending intentions for leisure travel have been on the decline since September, Deloitte said, even though average spending intentions across categories are holding steady.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Is zero-party data a real thing?
• How R/GA crafted an ode to Black beauty for Sephora
• Paramount+ wants every new show to be a hit