December 06, 2017 by Magda Ibrahim

A cutting-edge electronic campaign aided Avon and Somerset Police bring the message of staying safe while online dating sites to a concentrated audience, and may be used by other forces.

The Avon and Somerset Police comms group utilized a campaign that is pop-up Tinder and Snapchat to activate a huge selection of users dedicated to remaining safe on the web.

Launched in November 2016, the goal would be to encourage 18- to 35-year-olds to take care on line by creating content that is tongue-in-cheek reached the goal market regarding the platforms these were making use of.

Upsurge in online dating crimes

The campaign implemented statistics showing a razor-sharp boost in the sheer number of crimes associated with internet dating. Between 2011 and 2016 there is a 2,000 percent enhance nationwide into the amount of crimes victims that are involving had met the offender on dating apps Tinder and Grindr.

This enhance had been mirrored in Avon and Somerset, where 66 crimes related to Tinder and Grindr had been reported in in 2015/16, when compared with 20 in 2014/15.

Officers initially wished to achieve the prospective market by placing posters in nightclub toilets, but Avon and Somerset Police’s comms team decided to test developing a campaign which could operate on the Tinder software it self.

The group create two profiles that are tongue-in-cheek the application, run by communications officers have been within the audience on their own.

Tinder pages launched

Charlotte Lowe, electronic comms officer at Avon and Somerset Police, caused press officer Scott McPherson to introduce the pages on Tinder for a Sunday night, an occasion whenever users are many active from the software.

“It had been never ever supposed to be a permanent campaign, but a short-term stunt that has been exactly about conversing with communities regarding the platforms these were making use of, within the language they certainly were talking,” Lowe told PRWeek.

“We desired to provide the important thing communications directly to the goal market, cutting out the man that is middle. We didn’t understand that they utilized Tinder. when they read newspapers or utilized Facebook, but we did understand”

The comms group would not deliver down a news release or share information regarding being on Tinder, but utilized the software organically to activate users, as each dating ‘match’ ended up being sent an email featuring safe online dating sites tips.

Recommendations included asking their date’s complete name and Googling them; asking for lots more pictures; asking a buddy whatever they think and telling them whenever and where they planned to satisfy; and, if one thing bad does take place on a night out together, telling the authorities and reporting the criminal activity.

Media coverage

Neighborhood reporters utilising the application discovered the stunt on launch time, whilst it ended up being acquired by nationwide news such as the Mirror and Capital Information briefly afterward.

The pages gained 250 Tinder ‘matches’ in a day; this rose to 1,000 on the of the campaign, according to Lowe week.

Daily following the Tinder launch, the Avon and Somerset Police comms group took the style to Snapchat, making a Snapchat tale followers that are asking that they had “matched” because of the force recently.

“People would answer saying that they hadn’t matched on Tinder for us to engage with the target audience around the messages,” explained Lowe because they thought it was a fake profile, so that was another channel.

The Snapchat tale gained 124 extra supporters in a day, with an overall total 300 views of this tale.

Meanwhile, the Tinder and Snapchat task sparked a television meeting on BBC Points western, with Superintendent Marie Wright, who was simply the force’s lead for rape and severe intimate offences at that time.

Dimension challenge

Lowe stated the key challenge of utilizing a campaign that is stunt-type in calculating its effectiveness.

“With Tinder, all of the matches had to be counted manually, that foot fetish dating has been a challenge,” she unveiled.

“We didn’t have a really concrete method to connect our campaign to either a drop or a rise in reports, and we also couldn’t monitor it since it is a platform that is evolving.

“But whenever we wish to get in touch with new audiences on evolving platforms, we must accept it’s going to be difficult to evidence behaviour modification if the campaign concept is about speaking about practical recommendations with individuals one-on-one.”

The comms group anticipated and planned when it comes to campaign have brief lifespan – plus the profile ended up being eliminated by Tinder after per week.

An indication of success happens to be the attention from other forces, with Gloucestershire Police having now performed its campaign that is own various other forces planning to explore the idea.

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