In This Article
Subscribe to Business UpdatesAttack Ads Strike Dating Agency
May 14, 2007 02:44 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
eHarmony cries foul as a rival's commercials advertise that the agency rejected one million lonely hearts. Almost a third of those applicants were married, protests eHarmony.
30 Second Summary
The legal counsel for eHarmony has asked that NBC and People magazine drop the Chemistry.com advertisements.
The ads feature bemused and abject people pondering their failed eHarmony applications. "I am a good person," insists one cast-off from the dating agency. At the end of the TV commercials, the words “Rejected by eHarmony” are stamped across the applicants' features.
eHarmony has signed up 13 million people since its inception in 2000, in an industry with a yearly turnover of $500 million. Chemistry.com is a fast-growing year-old startup that has already attracted 2 million customers.
The older agency doesn’t deny rejecting one million people. What it objects to, it says, is that by not explaining the reasons for rejection, the Chemistry.com ads can imply that racial or ethnic prejudices are at work.
Applicants to eHarmony complete a 258-question form that includes a psychometric test designed to diagnose “severe depression.” As well as depressives, gay people and anyone under 60 who has been married more than twice are also ineligible.
However, the biggest cause of rejection is marital status. Around 30% of all the eHarmony rejects are married.
The ads feature bemused and abject people pondering their failed eHarmony applications. "I am a good person," insists one cast-off from the dating agency. At the end of the TV commercials, the words “Rejected by eHarmony” are stamped across the applicants' features.
eHarmony has signed up 13 million people since its inception in 2000, in an industry with a yearly turnover of $500 million. Chemistry.com is a fast-growing year-old startup that has already attracted 2 million customers.
The older agency doesn’t deny rejecting one million people. What it objects to, it says, is that by not explaining the reasons for rejection, the Chemistry.com ads can imply that racial or ethnic prejudices are at work.
Applicants to eHarmony complete a 258-question form that includes a psychometric test designed to diagnose “severe depression.” As well as depressives, gay people and anyone under 60 who has been married more than twice are also ineligible.
However, the biggest cause of rejection is marital status. Around 30% of all the eHarmony rejects are married.
Headline
One of the Chemistry.com ads features a rejected black man, which eHarmony’s chief executive believes could imply that applicants are turned away on grounds of race.
Source: The Washington Post
Multimedia
“I am a good person,” states the rejected eHarmony applicant in this Chemistry.com advertisement.
Source: YouTube
“At eHarmony.com we match you on the deep dimensions of compatibility,” says agency founder Dr. Warren in this eHarmony commercial. A procession of happily matched couples follows, culminating in a proposal.
Source: YouTube
“I wasn’t even looking for love. I just thought that eHarmonize would be a great way to pick up desperate easy chicks,” says the satisfied customer in this spoof commercial.
Source: YouTube
Key Players
Clinical psychologist Dr. Neil Clark Warren founded eHarmony in 2000. The agency describes itself as “the first relationship service on the Web to use a scientific approach to match highly compatible singles.” eHarmony now also offers online marriage guidance.
Source: eHarmony
“Mate selection is the key to a brilliant marriage,” say eHarmony founder Dr. Warren. He practiced as a psychologist for over 30 years, according to his Web site biography. Having seen “literally hundreds of failed marriages,” he arrived at one “overwhelming conclusion: In almost every case, these were two persons who should never have married each other!”
Source: Dr. Neil Clark Warren
“Opposites do attracts,” Dr. Warren says in an interview with the National Review, “and then they attack.”
Source: The National Review
Dr. Warren is an evangelical Christian with strong ties to the conservative Christian community, a fact that may have fueled some of the criticism his agency has received. eHarmony does not match gay couples, but Warren states in this audio interview that this is simply because he has no experience counseling same-sex couples.
Source: NPR
Dr. Warren's opposite number at Chemistry.com is Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist. Her biological approach to matchmaking contrasts with Warren's more psychological MO. According to the Chemistry.com Web site, Fisher has found that among other factors, we “gravitate to those who are somewhat different biologically. Probably for a genetic reason––to produce more genetic variety in our offspring.”
Source: Chemistry.com
Helen Fisher is a research professor and member of the Center for Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. She is working on a book on the “biological theories for why we are chemically (as well as psychologically) attracted to specific individuals.”
Source: Dr. Helen Fisher's Résumé
“Internet dating is more natural to the human brain than meeting in a bar. In a bar you often interact closely with people before you know anything at all about them. But for millions of years our ancestors lived in small hunting/gathering bands … long before a young man and woman actually met, they probably knew quite a bit about each other’s family background, values, and interests,” says Dr. Helen Fisher in this Q&A.
Source: Chemistry.com
Defending eHarmony is legal counsel Lanny J. Davis, who worked for Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky inquiry.
Source: Lanny J. Davis
Related Links
Online dating agencies have grown into a $500 million a year business. “No other industry makes as much money online from monthly fees, not even pornography," according to the International Herald Tribune.
Source: The International Herald Tribune
eHarmony’s advertising refers to research by the American Psychological Society. The author of the report cited is Stephen R. Carter, who is also the director of research at eHarmony. Carter states that “eHarmony was created based on the belief that a vast majority of marriages can be considered unhappy” and that “something needed to be done.”
Source: Association for Psychological Science
eHarmony’s own figures show that the agency finds a marriage partner for only 1 in 375 clients, says Glenn Hutchinson of weAttract, Inc, responding to Stephen R. Carter's article. Another reader and a member of the American Psychological Association describes Carter's piece as “rife with unsubstantiated claims and overblown rhetoric.”
Source: Association for Psychological Science
Need to Know
The Safer Online Dating Alliance (SODA) offers tips for people looking for love on the Internet.
Source: The Safer Online Dating Alliance
Reference Material
Around half (49%) of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. The United Kingdom has a higher divorce rate, at 53%, and Belarus ranks highest of all with 68% of marriages failing, according to United Nations figures.
Source: Infoplease
© 2010 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
