matchukmd’s blog

I went to see Tony Benn speak at the Festival Hall a week or so ago. Spurred on by the depth and range of his political insight and humour I’ve been reading some of his previous speeches and writing about Democracy, The EEC and Open Government. There’s an incredible amount of content that resonates as loudly today as it did when he was a Cabinet Minister in the 60’s and 70’s but there was one passage that struck a particular cord in the current climate. He himself is discussing the subject of energy (this is a speech from the early 70’s) and our need to diversify our energy reliance away from “multinationals controlled mainly from America” but it is a quote he brings forward from Winston Churchill in June 1914 which shows that this issue is longstanding and show no sign of going away;

“We have experienced … a long steady squeeze by the oil trusts all over the world, and we have found process and freights raised steadily against us until we have been pressed to pay more than double what a few years before we were accustomed to pay.”

Just arrived in New York for the week with our creative agency and a couple of things of interest happening over here. Firstly, saw Bush on TV night doing a press meeting, the guy looked liked that creepy uncle that tries too hard to be funny and informed. He is neither. Unconvincing was not the word, when asked about the state of the economy he said “I’m not an economist” – whilst factually correct you’d want a bit more than that from the man steering the ship of the world’s economy. Perhaps a more telling story in the NY Times this morning was the agreed sale of Anheuser Busch, brewers of Budweiser to InBev of Belgium for $52bn. The are some fairly candid responses to this sale of one of America’s flagship businesses but my favourite was from Opal Henderson, St Louis “Why can’t those foreigners just stay at home and leave us what we have?”. Another guy interviewed on CNN when asked what he thought about “Bud” being bought by a company from Belgium replied, “what, Belgium in Germany?”. Excellent.

Last night was also the Baseball All Star Game at Yankee Stadium, it looked like a great event and I really like this idea of the best players picked by the fans coming together to play an exhibition game and celebrating ‘Hall of Fame’ players as well. I wonder why we don’t try this with the Premier League.

On Tuesday this week I was a speaker at the Revolution – Digital Futures Conference in London, I was "handpicked" according to the blurb which was neither uncomfortable or as nerve-wracking as it sounds. The title of my presentation was Customer Captivation & Creating Long Term Engagement (aka Falling in Love with your Clients). I attempted to set out the challenges of building a brand and demonstrate how the process is like falling in love – to build a trusted brand you must be engaging, capture imaginations and spark conversations that will hopefully make for a long term relationship. Critically you must speak to your customers (aka loved one), think about the problem you are solving for them (if you are’t solving a problem why would they want to pay for your services?), understand how cultural and biological norms may influence engagement with you brand and product and constantly question and reevaluate your approach. As one of my favourite books, The Cluetrain Manifesto says, “Markets are conversations” - openness, transparency and a direct dialogue encourages engagement and keeps the relationship alive This process will then inform your creative output, which will in turn be influenced by the multi-media approach I am recommending.

The file is going to be uploaded to The Revolution site in a few days for anyone that wants to take a look.

As if the world doesn't have enough neurotic disorders already (for me it all ended when I found out you can have a morbid fear of cheese - Turophobia) I discovered that the latest neurosis is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact - Nomophobia.  I was reading Philip Roth's novel Exit Ghost on the Tube home and through serendipity stumbled across this passage which summed up the question of how the world got so obsessed with mobile telephony and always being available.

"What had happened in these ten years for there to be suddenly so much to say - so much pressing that it couldn't wait to be said? Everywhere I walked, somebody was approaching me talking on a phone and someone was behind me talking on a phone. Inside the cars, the drivers where on the phone. When I took a taxi, the cabbie was on the phone ..... I had to wonder what that had previously held them up had collapsed in people to make incessant talking into a telephone preferrable to walking about under no one's surveillance, momentarilly solitary, assimilating the streets through one's animal senses and thinking the myriad thoughts that the activities of a city inspire. For me it made the streets appear comic and the people ridiculous ....... What will the consequence be? You know you can reach the other person anytime, and if you can't, you get impatient - impatient and angry like a little stupid god."

I recently had the opportunity to sit on a panel at a Social Networking Conference organised by Oxford University's Internet Institute and Ofcom. According to Ofcom’s report on social networking almost one in five use these sites to introduce themselves to people they don’t know.

Although it must be said that social networking is helping to increase the accessibility and normality of online dating, it is a very different proposition to a bespoke matchmaking service. Social networking sites are designed to be exactly that – places for your existing social group to communicate easily and cheaply. They just aren’t geared up as a way to introduce yourself to strangers. With this in mind, its perhaps unsurprising that the research also suggests almost half of users have private profiles to ensure their information can only be viewed by existing friends.

In preparation for the conference I read a book by Yochai Benkler called The Wealth of Networks that discusses the use of networks and reaffirms the thinking above. His research shows that for the majority of people social networks predominantly serve as a reinforcement for 'strong ties' (people we have close relationships with) and not for creating realtionships based on 'weak ties'.  

The videos of every session, and of the Gala Dinner entertainers, are now available on YouTube. You can access them by visiting http://uk.youtube.com/user/eurozeitgeist08. The highlights for me are the conversations with Salman Rushdie and the team from www.askaninja.com

I’m currently attending the Google Partner Forum held at The Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire. The key note this morning was given by Gordon Brown, I read about this in the Times yesterday with some suspicion as they pointed out that perhaps this was a cynical alignment with the ‘Digital Industries’ and an attempt to update his somewhat ‘analog’ image but I came away from his speech not only impressed by his vision but also the glimpses of his humour and wit which the press usually comment on in absentia. (When asked if he had any advice for the adolescent Internet industry he recounted the saying that – “the first 500 years of any institution are always the most difficult” – also when commenting on his recent meetings with all three US Presidential candidates he commented that “all claim to have Irish ancestry”. Not exactly Oscar Wilde but certainly not the character depicted in the British press).

The main thrust of his comments where about the fact that we are in the middle of the “biggest period economic and cultural change since the industrial revolution”. For the UK he stated “the ultimate aim is to utilise all the innovation at our disposal to improve public services in this country and to give more power to those who use them”. More expansively he stated that we must embrace the opportunities presented by Globalisation without recourse to protectionist Government intervention. Mr. Brown claims he stands for an “open, flexible, free trade economy” and that we must not “lose site of the basic optimism where producers become consumers”.

Mr. Brown’s form of socialism calls for;

1. Free Trade
2. Greater flexibility in Markets (referring particularly to Oil and Food production)
3. More inclusiveness – (referring to helping people prepare and cope with change)
4. Global institutions that meet the challenges of changing times (“none of the Global institutions created in 1945 are working for the world of 2008”)
5. A Global Society which can “pursue the issues of Globalisation together”

Now I am aware within the space of 30 minutes there is a great deal that needs elaboration and clarification but to me it had the feel and idealism of the work of Anthony Crosland in ‘The Future of Socialism’. I was sat there thinking that it was perhaps a follow-on from the “Basic Socialist Aspirations” set out in 1956 (half remembered this morning but reproduced here thanks to a quick Google search that perfectly illustrates the utility of technology in forming of ideas);

“First, a protest against the material poverty and physical squalor which capitalism produced. Secondly, a wider concern for ‘social welfare’ … Thirdly, a belief in equality and the ‘classless society’, and especially a desire to give the worker his ‘just’ rights and a responsible status at work. Fourthly, a rejection of competitive antagonism and an ideal of fraternity and cooperation. Fifthly, a protest against the inefficiences of capitalism as an economic system, and notably its tendency to mass unemployment”

I was still thinking through Mr. Brown’s comments when the next topics were introduced - “Technology as an enabler in India and Africa” and “Technology as a tool for cross cultural connectivity” (a speech given by Queen Rania of Jordan). It couldn’t be any more apparent that the challenges set out previously and Crosland’s “Aspirations” are current and pressing. At the heart of both of these discussions was the place of technology and communications networks to enable change of every kind. As Queen Rania said, the use of technology must “help raise consciousness and build a bridge between perception and trust”.  I came away from these speeches reminded why for me that the use technology and the Internet in particular offers an optimism and opportunity that is unprecedented in our lifetime.

2008 seems set to be the year that the popularity of online dating makes it truly mainstream. Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen coverage of online dating and match.com on high profile programmes including Sky News and Working Lunch and, continuing this trend, I was recently interviewed for Reuters TV.  It’s a big step forward to be hitting these news agendas but it’s also a reflection of the fact our industry touches on so many issues that everyone can relate to.

It was great to hear from one of our match marriages, Andreas and Jane, for the Reuters TV piece. Having chatted with them, they feel that the social perception of online dating has significantly altered since they met in 2002. Apparently, no one bats an eyelid at their ‘love on the net’ story anymore which, perhaps more than anything, indicates how commonplace online dating is becoming.

Andrew Davidson Interview - The Sunday Times 9th March 2008

Thomas Enraght-Moony is boss of Match.com, the world’s biggest internet dating agency. Backed by a surge in use from the divorced overfifties, he offers happiness for all. Can he deliver?

THE WORLD is full of lonely people, but don’t despair. Thomas Enraght-Moony is here.

“My goal is to take internet dating into the mainstream,” he grins. “It should be the main way of meeting people. It’s better than going down the pub, having a few pints and hoping to bump into someone, isn’t it?”

He has a point, but he also has a vested interest. Enraght-Moony, a geek Cupid who looks too fresh-faced to advise anyone on love, heads a business that is galloping away.

Match.com, American-owned and based in Dallas, operates in 37 countries and is already the world’s biggest internet dating agency. In Britain it is about to get bigger still with a deal to run dating sites for The Sun and News of the World. You can’t get more mainstream than that.

“One of the interesting things about the UK is that newspaper dating sites are much more powerful than elsewhere,” says Enraght-Moony, sitting in the London offices of his UK chief. Short, skinny and smartly suited, he drawls the word “dating” with a transatlantic twang one notch east of Woody Allen.

In fact, Enraght-Moony, just 36, is a mongrel hotshot. South African by birth, with Irish roots, he followed a British university and French business school with an American tech career, and is now rising fast in the IAC internet empire headed by Barry Diller, former boss of Paramount and Fox.

IAC owns Match, and a gaggle of other online firms, including Ask.com and Evite. Last year Match made a $78m profit on revenues of $349m, of which 30% came from outside America. Many expect it to be a billion dollar business by 2012.

Enraght-Moony’s job is to push the firm, already growing revenues at 17% a year, to fulfil that potential. Hence last week’s flying visit to London.

“There are 93m single people in America – only 3m use online dating services. There are 12m single people in Britain. That’s set to rise to 16m by 2011. Almost everyone who could use these services, doesn’t. Our task is to get them off the fence.”

So if you haven’t used his services, you might yet. Once the preserve of the young and tech-savvy, internet dating sites now carry heavy traffic from the growing number of divorced overfifties.

And they have a lot to choose from. Match was founded in 1995 and has a near 50/50 gender split among users, but hundreds of competing sites have followed, many of them free to use. None, however, operates on the same global scale. Few are as good at making money.

“You can register for free, create your own profile with photos, but when you want to communicate you have to pay,” says Enraght-Moony. A six-month subscription in Britain costs £65.25.

The money invested gives you an assurance of quality control. Entries are overseen, scam-artists weeded out. “We have a zero-tolerance policy,” says Enraght-Moony. Anyone can browse the site, pulling out abridged profiles by locality, for free. The rest carries costs.

And for its managers, the meet-market world packs an emotional punch beyond mere business. A quick trawl of online links garners some angry complainers, who say they never found what was promised, or were hit on by predators. Not for nothing is Match nicknamed Snatch.com by some American males.

Enraght-Moony, who trained as a computer programmer before entering management, promises that every complaint is investigated. “If it’s upheld, you are out.”

Most customers have positive experiences, he says. “You are applying technology to one of the most important decisions people can make, and it’s such a great fit. We get photos of babies and wedding invitations. Wow! I just got one from a couple in Florida who would never have met without us. And yeah, I am going.”

But isn’t a happy customer by definition a lost customer? He laughs. “No, it’s the best thing that can happen. They tell their friends. When a couple marry through Match, you can guarantee what the bridesmaids will be doing the next day.”

So who are core users? Men and women aged 28-45, but the overfifties are gaining fast. “If you’re divorced in your fifties, and everyone you know is connected to who you were married to, you want to expand possibilities, and meet new people.

“We’re also getting kids putting their parents on, saying ‘Mum, you can do it. Just try it.’ As soon as they do, they find it works.”

Couldn’t they use free sites like Facebook and MySpace? No, says Enraght-Moony. “They are great for keeping in touch with people you know, but to meet new people you turn to a brand like Match.”

In Britain, where Match runs blokeish television commercials featuring Cupid and Fate, the market is growing fast. “The British are reserved. What the advertising says is, you need to be pro-active. People take a look, see the great quality people on the site, and that gets them over the next hurdle.”

The tabloid deal with The Sun and News of the World - owned ultimately by News Corporation, which also owns The Sunday Times - may bring Match a whole new demographic. Enraght-Moony is cautious.

“We work with a host of people - MSN and Yahoo in this country - business development takes time.”

It also reflects local preferences. Despite being a global internet business, Match needs people on the ground where it operates, as love comes with cultural quirks. Hence in France, women use the service for free. In Germany, men can subsidise women subscribers. In Japan, users want verification of bloodtype and income.

“To them, love is a temporary disease - why make an important decision on the basis of a temporary aberration? Marriage is different, it’s a contract between two families, combining ancestors and people not yet born,” he says.

Four years ago Enraght-Moony was running online sales for AT&T Wireless, America’s biggest mobile-phone service. You can only imagine how different this job must be.

“Yeah, but being in a big company made me realise it’s not what I wanted to do. When AT&T merged with Cingular Wireless in 2004, they said it would only take them three years to build a fantastic new network. With the speed the internet is moving, you can’t sit around waiting for that.” Enraght-Moony is used to living on the hoof. Born in South Africa, the eldest son in a medical family, he was brought to Britain in 1986 with his three siblings to escape apartheid-era conscription.

By the early 1990s he was at Glasgow University, researching his history degree on the first PCs. “I was blown away,” he says. He joined Andersen Consulting to be a computer programmer, working with Shell, Barclay-card and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

He retrained again at Insead business school to get into management. He married an American - they met at Andersen - and in 2000 followed her work at Goldman Sachs to San Francisco, just before the tech stock crash.

“We bought our house the week after the Nasdaq bombed. I know that because someone else bought it the week before.”

He started at online broker Etrade, moved to a software start-up, then AT&T Wireless in Seattle, following his former Etrade boss Jim Safka. When Safka became chief executive of Match in 2004, Enraght-Moony went, too. He took the top slot last year.

Safka calls Enraght-Moony a get-it-done guy. “You want something moved A to B, ask Thomas. You sleep easy. He’s worked through all sides of business.”

The current Match boss says they had complementary styles. “Jim was gut-feel, I was numbers. Now I have a great guy running Match in America who is the opposite of me.” Safka went on to head Ask.com.

Enraght-Moony clearly loves that jump-around speed of new technology. His UK chief, Jason Stockwood, cites his boss’s “sheer passion for the power of the web”.

Within Diller’s IAC, says Enraght-Moony, that’s harnessed with an informal but results-driven ethos. “IAC has scale and resources to bring to bear on a problem,” says the Match boss, “but also a culture of leaving operators alone and judging them on results. That’s exactly what I want.”

And what is the input of Diller, the veteran media dealmaker? “Barry has a real understanding of the consumer. We talk every week. If you go to him with a problem, he always has another way to tackle it.”

IAC is promising to intensify that focus by spinning off subsidiaries Ticketmaster, Interval, Lending Tree and HSN (Home Shopping Network) into separately quoted vehicles. Match will then be left with the 30 small to medium-sized firms inside IAC. That could increase its firepower.

But Enraght-Moony is cagey about possible acquisitions. Chased by different competitors in different markets – Dating Direct in Britain, eHarmony in America – there are other priorities. “We’ve got a terrific brand; we are growing fast; we are in the markets we want to be; we have a ton to do.”

Currently, he says, they are rolling out a higher-end option called Chemistry, based on research commissioned from an acclaimed academic anthropologist. Clients fill out a detailed character questionnaire and are matched with suitable partners.

And if that all prospers, will he be off up the IAC ladder into the arms of another?

Too late. A head has popped round the door. “Barry needs to talk to you right now.”

Enraght-Moony stands up. “Clear a meeting room for the call,” he says, before turning to me apologetically. It’s all right, I have my answer. Diller on line one. Got to go.

THOMAS ENRAGHT-MOONY’S WORKING DAY

THE Match.com chief executive wakes before 6am at his home in University Park, north Dallas, and drives a mile to his local gym to work out. Later Thomas Enraght-Moony drops his children at preschool and is at his desk in the Match.com office before 9am.

“I check sales, look at what customers are telling us, listen in to calls, visit competitor sites, see if anything new is going on.”

He has eight executives reporting direct to him, many running regions round the world. He talks to Europe in the morning, Asia in the afternoon. “My day finishes late. I don’t get home to bath the boys as often as I’d like.”

VITAL STATISTICS

Born:September 13, 1971

Marital status:married with two sons

School:Rugby

University:Glasgow

First job:computer programmer at Andersen Consulting

Salary:undisclosed

Home:Dallas

Car:white Toyota Prius

Favourite book:The Cook’s Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue

Favourite music:Bach

Favourite film:‘I don’t watch films’

Favourite gadget:Bialetti Mukka Express Cappuccino Maker

Last holiday:skiing in Utah

DOWNTIME

“WITH two small boys aged three and five, I don’t get much time to relax,” says Thomas Enraght-Moony. But at weekends he likes to have a barbecue. “Coming from a South African background, and moving to Texas, if you’ve seen it, I’ve barbecued it,” he says. He uses the smallest barbecue he could buy in Dallas, but it is still bigger than a dining table. “There’s a debate between charcoal and gas. I like gas for convenience.”

Having worked in San Francisco and Seattle, he finds Dallas a different experience. “I drive a Prius, and for a while, people would stop and ask, why would you do that?”

by Nicola Clark Marketing 12-Feb-08, 08:45

LONDON - This Valentine's Day, more couples than ever sitting down for the obligatory romantic dinner will have met through cyberspace; half a million of them through Match.com. With about 12m singletons in the UK, the affable Jason Stockwood, managing director, international, of Match.com, wants to find them all a suitable partner.