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Tinder

Brand of the day: Tinder

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By Rebecca Stewart, Trends Editor

August 13, 2015 | 3 min read

Welcome to Brand of the Day, where we pick the brand making headlines and explain what you need to know about why it's in the news.

Our brand of the day is Tinder.

The dating app has announced that co-founder Sean Rad is to return as chief executive officer following the departure of former eBay and Microsoft executive Chris Payne, who was only appointed in March.

Rad, currently president at the startup, stepped down from the helm in November 2014 amid a sexual harassment lawsuit, and claims that the brand was looking to find “an Eric Schmidt-like person”.

Launched in 2012, Tinder was initially made accessible to just 300 students at USC and by the end its first week live it had amassed 1000 users.

The location-based matchmaking service is now available in 196 countries, including China and North Korea, and the app’s 50 million users have generated 8bn connections to date – an average of 160 per person.

In April last year, IAC purchased a 10 per cent stake in the company in a transaction thought to be worth $500m.

The platform has garnered a host of celebrity fans, with Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran and Kendall Jenner all rumoured to have signed up. In 2014 it introduced verified profiles for A-listers looking to find love online.

On Wednesday (12 August), the brand unleashed a 30-tweet rant against Vanity Fair, following a story published in the magazine titled 'Tinder and the Dawn of the 'Dating Apocalypse'.

Tinder complained that it had not been contacted about the piece and contested a survey which noted that 30 per cent of its users are married.

It has since issued a statement to say it was "saddened to see that the article didn't touch upon the positive experiences that the majority of users encounter daily."

Video is the next medium that Tinder wants to conquer. Speaking to The Drum at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Rad said that “eventually users will have the ability to leverage video in their profiles”.

“It’s complicated, but we’re figuring out the right way to do it,” he added.

Today’s shake-up follows comments from Tinder board member Matt Cohler, who told Re/Code it became clear after just a few months that Payne wasn’t going to become “a long term fit”, so the company had to react quickly.

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