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Dating apps have developed a bad reputation lately. People ghost others, which means they simply stop responding to someone they once shared frequent correspondence with. There appear to be slim pickings, despite living in big cities like New York, and did we mention a lot of these apps now cost money?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n At the inaugural SXSW London, TechCrunch caught up with Jackie Jantos, the CMO and president of Hinge, to talk about how the company is marketing itself to a new generation in what has become a listless dating scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a generation that has grown up with a deep understanding of how digital experiences are created and what they are trying to get out of them,\u201d Jantos said in an interview with TechCrunch. She listed out the traits Gen Zers want most out of their brands, like transparency and authenticity. It\u2019s a diverse generation that spends less time in person than its predecessors.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re not building with inclusion at the center of everything, you\u2019re just not going to build a meaningful product or marketing activation to engage them,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The dating app landscape has evolved over the past few years, seeing companies like Hinge working overtime to try and attract and sustain user attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tinder, for example, has struggled with growth <\/a>in the past few years, culminating in the stepping down of its CEO a few weeks ago. Bumble is also seeing<\/a> a slowdown in user growth. <\/p>\n Hinge and Tinder are both owned by Match Group. The Q1\u20192025 report released by Match Group shows that Hinge is faring a bit better than its sister company. The report showed<\/a> that Hinge saw an increase in direct revenue, compared to Tinder, and that the app\u2019s downloads were \u201cstrong\u201d across the English-speaking and Western European markets.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jantos said Hinge is implementing and toying around with numerous new features at the moment. For example, it has added a quota on how many chats one person can have at one time so that a user isn\u2019t simply \u201ccollecting chats.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to encourage people to close out chats if you\u2019re not interested in someone,\u201d Jantos said, adding that hopefully this encourages people to focus on a smaller number of conversations that can successfully move toward a date. She said Hinge is testing its coaching feature, which looks to give users tips about building their profiles.<\/p>\n The Match Group Q1\u20192025 report said Hinge was also looking to introduce Warm Introductions soon to \u201chighlight shared interests to improve match quality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Jantos was coy on details but said there was a new introduction that would hopefully encourage users to \u201cspend a little more time discovering each profile.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOur recommendations have gotten really strong with the new AI recommender that we recently released,\u201d she added. (Match Group\u2019s Q1\u20192025 news report<\/a> said the new feature, launched in March, has already driven a 15% increase in matches and contact exchanges.) Jantos said that Hinge is also hoping to boost its safety features with AI and that overall, tools on the app will \u201ccontinuously improve because of AI.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut also new tools will come along the wya to coach you along the [dating] journey,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jantos flew into the inaugural SXSW London to give a talk about the loneliness epidemic impacting Gen Zers. There is no shortage of stories and reports on how young people are connecting less with the outside world, glued to their phones and virtual realities. Jantos told TechCrunch this is one reason Hinge launched its One More Hour fund in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n