How Hinge increased app downloads with an anti-retention strategy

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People put in a lot of effort to avoid ads. They pay more for subscriptions, turn on pop-up blocking, and even download ad-blocking software.

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Hinge doesn’t call itself a dating app. It’s a self-proclaimed “relationship app” with the mission of creating meaningful relationships. It’s anti-mindless swiping and anti-meaningless matches.

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For a while, this was a low key, IYKYK differentiation—until Hinge rolled out the tagline “Designed to be deleted.”

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This week, Case Studied looks at how Hinge embraced the goal of their product, even though it meant rejecting the core driver of almost every healthy business, retention.

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The Brief:

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On one hand, some marketers are obsessed with retention, lifetime value, and maximizing revenue. On the other hand, there’s Hinge’s mission: “create a less lonely world by inspiring intimate, in-person connections.”

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These two might seem like they’re in stark opposition. But Hinge proved that not every business needs high LTV and retention to be successful.

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And they did it by partnering Red Antler to craft a brand and app interface that made their mission clear.

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The Execution:

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“Designed to be deleted” wasn’t just a tagline or a marketing campaign or a product update. And even though it checks a lot of the same boxes, it wasn’t fully a rebrand either. Red Antler calls the project a “brand platform” so let’s go with that.

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This platform involved updates to Hinge’s onboarding process, its product design elements, and, of course, its marketing, all reimagined around this reinvigorated brand mission.

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Red Antler created a furry version of the app icon named Hingie that dies whenever two matches become a couple. Hingie was featured in out-of-home creative, TV spots, and digital ads on Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and Hulu. It dies by getting run over by a cab, burning up in a bonfire, being swarmed by pigeons, and much more.

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In every part of the customer journey, the message from Hinge was clear—they want to help you find love and get off the heck off the app.

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“We felt like ‘designed to be deleted’ had an energy of positivity and optimism to it that the old design wasn’t living up to,” said Tim MacGougan, chief product officer for Hinge. “So the old design was communicating relationships, but in a way that was…a little bit more muted, and we thought that that was not the right way to foster authenticity and courage from people.”

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As scary, bold, and counterproductive as “Designed to be deleted” achieved three key goals:

💘 brought Hinge’s mission to the forefront of its product + marketing

🗣️ drove word of mouth among app-deleters and potential users

🫶 communicated a clear message to Hinge’s target audience about their mission

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The majority of Hinge’s downloads are the result of couples sharing their dating app success stories with friends. So in the long run, promoting the app’s efficacy was more worthwhile than focusing on user retention. In other words, helping people find love was more beneficial to the business than keeping people on the app forever as their viral coefficient outweighed churn.

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At the same time, the updated brand platform aligns the app with its target users more clearly.

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“If you are not interested in actually finding somebody, if you are wanting to stay on dating apps, then you’re going to quickly learn that Hinge is not the best app for you,” MacGougan said. “Some people are going to see our design and our brand, and they’re going to say, ‘This isn’t for me,’ and that’s great. We really only want to be attracting people who want to meet somebody and delete dating apps.”

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The Results:

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Red Antler’s work with Hinge resulted in 3 international, integrated campaigns. After purchasing a majority stake the year prior, Match Group—who also owns Tinder, OkCupid, Match.com, and Plenty of Fish—completed its acquisition of Hinge after successful rollout of “Designed to be deleted.”

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As for usage, Hinge saw a 47% increase in app downloads following the project and an 18% increase in users deleting the app. And contrary to what the tagline implies, Hinge saw 3x revenue growth following the campaign partnership.

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Did the campaign cause Hinge to lose some customers? Sure.

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But it also propelled them to become the fastest growing app in their category.

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Red Antler’s work with Hinge isn’t over, either. They recently launched an international “Designed to be deleted” ad campaign targeting Gen Z.

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The Takeaways:

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You might not need to launch a whole new brand platform. But there are plenty of pages that can be taken from Hinge and Red Antler’s book.

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1. Stick to your mission

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Hinge wasn’t exactly straying from their mission before “Designed to be deleted” came about. But didn’t fully lean into it until this campaign.

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Most audiences appreciate authenticity, especially in a brand’s marketing and advertising. The more consistent and aligned you are with your mission, the more trust you build.

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2. Buck conventional wisdom

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As a challenger brand, following what market leaders are doing will only make it more difficult to stand out and gain market share.

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Sometimes going against norms, while perhaps not the best short term financial decision, can help you differentiate yourself in a crowded industry like dating.

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3. Personify your brand

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Hingie is a great example of how a brand or app can create a more tangible version of itself. While most apps are often relegated to “just another piece of tech”, creating a mascot or character for your brand brings humanity to it that often doesn’t exist.

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This is something that you see a lot with retail brands, where characters like Tony the Tiger & Mr. Clean have created entirely new associations to their brands.

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