More Lightning In A Bottle For Fun & Profit

I AM NOT A SINGLE GUY--SO WHY DO I LOVE THESE COMMERCIALS?

I'll tell ya why: 'cuz, if you haven't figured it out after all these years, I am an ad geek.

Watching and talking about advertising is sport.

Some guys like to armchair quarterback last night's football game. I like to armchair quarterback the commercials that ran during the game.

And right now, some of my new favorite commercials are coming from one of my longtime favorite advertisers: eHarmony.

Yes, I am happily married.

And my wife reads this pathetic weekly screed.

She will understand--not only because it is some really good new advertising, but because she's worked with the guys who create this advertising and likes them a lot.

SO, THE EHARMONY MODEL IS OLD, WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT THE NEW SPOTS?

eHarmony is now doing something that answers a nagging question about their category.

If you've ever been involved in advertising any kind of a dating site or service, you know that there's one perennial challenge: not enough guys use the service.

Women are typically more willing and ready to join a dating service.

Men, not so much.

So, a plethora of women sit there, twiddling their thumbs in front of their computers, waiting for new guys to show up.

For years, as eHarmony has been running their happy loving couples testimonials, I'd been wondering how this problem affected them.

My guess is this: no differently than for any other dating site.

Because recently, they've begun running new messages that suggest as much.

HEY, SINGLE GUYS: MEET A TYPICAL EHARMONY SINGLE GUY

It was really just a little bit shocking earlier this month when, for the first time, one of these new spots came across my TV screen.

We're so used to the real, unvarnished, un-Hollywood couples of eHarmony land.

It was a total surprise to see that single guy, in jeans and a T-shirt and a beard, talking to the camera:

JON: What am I hoping for? Cool, great girl to get along with. Lets me be me. I enjoy her being her. It's close.

OFF CAMERA: So you really want a relationship?

JON: Yes. I mean, I didn't sign up to eHarmony for dates.

ANNCR: Review all your matches for free. At eHarmony.com

Every eHarmony commercial up to that point had been one thing: a success story.

But here, we don't yet have a success story.

We have a guy looking for a girl.

A regular guy who looks like he might be the guy next door.

A regular guy who might just be the kind of guy I might be, and who wants the same kinds of things in a girl I want, i.e. not some girl who thinks, "Well, I can change him."

IT'S A DIFFERENT KIND OF ASPIRATIONAL ADVERTISING

All of eHarmony's messages have been stories that other people could aspire to living out for themselves.

Now, it's a suddenly message for a guy who might be reluctant to try a dating site.

And eHarmony likes Jon so much, they've done not one but two commercials with him:

JON: With some of those other sites, it's more of a kind of a numbers game. You get a million people on there, and you meet some girl, and you know she's gettin' a hundred emails the same day you email her, and you have to rifle through thousands and thousands of profiles, and it's a totally different experience here when you use eHarmony 'cause they kinda do most of the work for you. I've had one date so far. I'm going on my second date tomorrow night, actually, so maybe by the time this commercial is on, I won't be single any more.

ANNCR: Review all your matches for free at eHarmony.com

There's enough left-brain information there to appeal to the left-brain nature of so many guys, and enough right-brain WOW to be disarming to the same left-brain guy who keeps rationalizing his way out of using eHarmony.

And just as a sidebar for all those hardcore direct response types in the audience: without using a single canned DR copywriting tactic, this is still DR, with a an offer, a call to action, and the word "Free" attached.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

Jon is not the only regular guy parading around in eHarmony land unattached.

There's also Craig, a big, strong, Teddy bear of a guy in a soccer jersey:

CRAIG: I could go onto a site and say, "I like to play soccer." And maybe I'll get 5,000 women who like to play soccer. Fantastic. But if that's all we've got in common, it better be the World Cup all year round or we're gonna be in trouble. There's no...click. There's no, um, there's nothing deeper than that. With eHarmony, everything's so to the core, I think you stand a much better chance of meeting someone you really connect with. And that's more important to me than anything, ya know.

ANNCR: Review all your matches for free at eHarmony.com

Wow. Craig. You're a regular guy with a good head on your shoulders. You're nobody's doofus.

And like Jon, and like every other person eHarmony has trotted out before their cameras, he is easygoing, natural, and UNSCRIPTED!

YES, UNSCRIPTED!

I say this in ALL CAPS and with an exclamation point (!) because I can't tell you the number of times I've seen people try to do "testimonial" commercials where they've WRITTEN COPY FOR THE TESTIMONIAL SUBJECT!

Seriously: I know people who've written scripts based on a customer's experience and expected the customer to record it as if it were their own words.

It doesn't work that way. You need to capture lightning in the bottle of advertising--and it DOESN'T happen by hammering all the spontaneity out of the process.

It happens by knowing how to talk to a subject, how to make them comfortable, how to get them to share, how to be appropriately emotional, and THEN--taking the time required to sift through the raw material to find the gems.

"But that's so much work!"

Uh-hunh.

It's even more work to go and find another client when the one whose canned testimonial didn't work cancels his advertising.

But I digress.

IS THIS THE GIRL YOU'RE LOOKING FOR?

As far as I can tell, eHarmony has also trotted out their first single white female.

And she's not your typical SWF. She's just a little different. At least, that's what I'm thinking when I see a blond with long hair and bangs, a gray linen outfit and black nail polish, who's named Maddisen.

If I were a single guy, I don't think I'd be saying, "Whoa, baby! Maddisen's the girl for me!" But there IS something attractive about her. And part of it is her candor:

MADDISEN: I like the whole process that eHarmony uses. It was really a nice exercise for me to get clear about what I wanted, or what I was seeking in...in a man.

ANNCR: Review all your matches for free at eHarmony.com

This is a message for singles everywhere, men and women: instead of endless swing-and-a-miss dating, you're about to get your head straight about what you're looking for.

Everyone knows eHarmony is skilled at hooking people up for real and for good. We've seen the evidence.

Now, they're talking to you, unattached single, about what it is you don't yet know and probably want.

And if you're creating advertising for anything that can be marketed using real people talking about it, eHarmony once again offers a fine model to go by.

Just don't be afraid to do the work required to get there. At the end of the day, it feels much better than pounding out 165 scripted words about a business that's there "for all your FILL IN THE BLANK needs."