True (th) in Advertising

OK now, I'll be the first to admit, that in the past, I have tried online dating services. Obviously, the results were not that spectacular, as I am still more or less single (well, officially, and I'm not currently looking). 'Nuff said.

So, being ever the social optomist, a few months back I put up a "profile" at MySpace, which, for those of you who don't know, is a "social networking" site - NOT an online dating site. Yeah, right. What the hell is the difference between social networking and dating? Um... well, in social networking you have a few more nutjobs, loonies, nasties, and other undesirables and utterly unqualifieds to fend off, but other than that, very little difference.

Alright, well, the point of this rant being the current ad campaign being run by some new online dating outfit called "True" and their ads appear ALL over MySpace, driving me nuts.

Below, are two of the ads they currently run (and none of the additional ads are any different):



Now, my favorite one, I couldn't get to pop up, which has another gratuitous (and quite nice, really) tit shot, with the caption, "Dive into Love."

Which I can hardly type without laughing so hard I want to pee my pants.

Now, I'm glad they do background checks and all that, but hey, how about checking to see if the person REALLY looks like their photo, or better yet, how about making sure that all the photos on the site, and in the advertising are the REAL photos of the people on the service???

Oh, wait, that would mean.. uh, NOBODY would sign up.

I'm just bent on a service called "True" pitching something in a so patently False manner.

I mean, you know what?

People WANT to fall in love, need to fall in love.

So why not advertise to that value?

Find a way to connect with that narrative, value based thread deep within people to communicate the belief that your service will them find that missing part of their life? As Hugh over at GapingVoid says - "The Market for Something to Believe In is Infinite."

Maybe that just wouldn't mean as high a subscription rate... but it might also mean not as high a disappointment rate.

My two cents.