Hinge’s Furry Mascot Will Die for Gen Z Love

Hinge partners with Red Antler for Third “Designed To Be Deleted®” Campaign

Monday, August 22, 2022 - Today, Hinge, the dating app designed to be deleted, unveils its third international “Designed To Be Deleted” ad campaign, encouraging users to find love and delete the app. The campaigns have seen great success with millennial daters as the intentional dating app, and the brand is now looking to expand on that success with the next generation of daters.

Developed and produced by Red Antler, the new campaign reintroduces “Hingie,” Hinge’s furry, bright-eyed app icon, to a younger audience. Hinge aims to resonate with and increase brand awareness among Gen Z by reflecting their unique dating habits. The nine dating scenarios in the campaign show couples going on creative dates, such as a pottery class, hiking, and stargazing, as Hinge found a majority of global Gen Z daters say they prefer dates that don’t involve alcohol because they want to be in the right state of mind while getting to know someone.

The campaign is also full of playful and absurdist humor and directly speaks to how this generation approaches dating. Less “Designed to Be Deleted” forever and more “delete when it feels just right”. Hinge found Gen Z daters still want a meaningful connection, but are less focused on finding “the one.” In fact, 75 percent are looking for an intentional relationship - short or long term.

In the background of these dates, Hingie is happily sacrificing itself for each couple’s connection once they have experienced their unique “green flag” moment. As a self-aware generation that knows what it wants, Gen Z is only interested in romantic relationships that feel additive to their everyday lives. So by showcasing green flags scenarios in relationships, Hinge lets the audience know that when the green flags are there and the feeling’s right, delete us.

Hinge tapped three Gen Z TikTok creators to voice-over the campaign, providing reactions and commentary to the dates on screen, including Keyon Elkins (@itskeyonn) from Louisiana, United States, Samantha Andrew (@samanthandrew1) from Melbourne, Australia, and Victor Kunda (@victor.kunda) from South East London, United Kingdom.

“With our third “Designed to Be Deleted” campaign, we looked to Gen Z for inspiration to ensure the work resonated with the next generations of daters, and reflected their unique dating style,” said Ola Sobiecki, Creative Director at Hinge. “We also wanted to layer in Gen Z's unapologetic personality by bringing in well-known TikTok creators to narrate each dating scene to help provide a level of authenticity a traditional script just can't match.”

“Hinge has been an incredible partner to Red Antler over the years, and we're thrilled to be back again for our third iteration of “Designed to Be Deleted”,” said Jenna Navitsky, Chief Creative Officer at Red Antler. “It's been so fun introducing the lovable (and destructible!) Hingie to a new generation of daters.”

The integrated campaign leverages out of home creative, digital ads, and TV spots on Hulu. For the first time, this campaign has been produced with digital at the forefront. Between August 22nd and December 31st, spots can be found on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, and Hulu. Out of home can be found in Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York City in the US.

The campaign was filmed in Stockholm, Sweden. Hinge and Red Antler worked with Aspekt for production. Joel Nordstrom and Lars Ohlin of RBG6 directed alongside an up-and-coming Filmmaker & Artist Michelle Eismann. Editorial by Mackcut and photography by Gustav Almestal.