Finding the story inside the data.

Plenty of Fish | Dating Trends

Consumer Insights + Data-Driven Storytelling

The Opportunity

Plenty of Fish had an established annual Dating Trends program built around proprietary member research. As competitors began developing similar trend reports, I saw an opportunity to rethink the program entirely, evolving it from an annual trends announcement into a distinctive, ownable storytelling platform that could generate culturally relevant stories throughout the year.

The goal was to turn consumer data into conversation without relying on a product launch or large-scale marketing campaign.

The Approach

For the 2021 campaign, the cultural context was impossible to ignore. The pandemic had fundamentally changed how people met, dated, and formed relationships, creating entirely new behaviors and considerations for singles.

I led the strategic evolution of the program, using research from more than 2,000 Plenty of Fish members to understand how those changes, alongside broader shifts in pop culture and consumer behavior, were showing up in dating. We translated the insights into memorable terminology and narratives designed to make the data relatable, newsworthy, and distinctly Plenty of Fish.

Rather than treating the annual trends release as a single launch moment, we built an ongoing earned media strategy around individual trends and cultural moments. We intentionally leaned into pandemic-related behaviors where the data supported them, giving Plenty of Fish a relevant and credible way to participate in one of the defining conversations of the moment.

One of those trends was “Fauci-ing,” a term inspired by the research to describe declining to date someone who wasn't taking COVID-19 seriously. The cultural connection gave the story relevance well beyond traditional dating media. The term ultimately reached Dr. Anthony Fauci himself during an Axios interview, sparking another wave of national and global coverage for Plenty of Fish.

The Impact

“Fauci-ing” generated 408 stories and social posts and 1.55 billion impressions in two weeks, with coverage from Forbes, Mashable, HuffPost, Vanity Fair, the New York Post and others. Positive online sentiment for Plenty of Fish increased 80%, demonstrating how proprietary data, cultural insight, and creative storytelling could create meaningful brand impact.