MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
August 28 – September 4, 2008 Edition
Penguin, Match.com
Write New Chapter
in Matchmaking
LONDON/8/28/08–Penguin and match.com August 26 launched www.penguindating.co.uk , a service which brings together book lovers and dating for the very first time. Taking romance into the 21st century, Penguin has chosen to partner with the UK’s biggest online dating website* match.com to ensure their readers have the best chance of finding love online.
The launch of www.penguindating.co.uk will offer Penguin readers a place to meet and indulge in the age old art of writing love letters as the boom in online dating fast restores the importance of the written word to modern courtship.
To help them in their quest to find a fellow literary lover, Penguin readers will be asked to write about the last book they read in their profile and can use match.com’s ‘matchwords’ search feature to hunt through the site’s thousands of registered profiles by their favourite book, be it Adele Parks or Kafka.
The partnership between Penguin and match.com will be supported by a comprehensive PR and marketing push, including promotions across Penguin’s websites, monthly and author newsletters. There will also be a series of end page adverts in over two million of Penguin’s most popular fiction titles, encouraging Penguin readers to visit www.penguindating.co.uk and meet fellow book lovers.
Penguin’s Digital Marketing Director Anna Rafferty said: “Sometimes a book is a disposable adventure, an entertaining, temporary distraction that you don’t think about again once you’ve read the last page. But sometimes a book means so much more; at Penguin we believe that the books we cherish and read over and over, those that we feel a deep emotional connection with, say something defining about us and the type of people we are. ‘What are you reading / what did you last read / who’s your favourite author?’ are all standard first date questions and what better way to find your life partner than over a shared love for Lawrence or a passion for Pynchon? We knew there was an opportunity for this type of service for our audience, and the Penguin community provides the perfect forum to meet a likeminded special someone. However, to create this new service successfully, we wanted to partner with the world leaders in online dating to ensure we could provide the best quality of experience.”
Jason Stockwood, Managing Director International at match.com added: “This partnership gives us a unique opportunity to successfully match lovers of literature. At match.com we are all about making people successful in their search for that special someone and a shared interest in specific authors or the desire to discuss literature can be compelling signifiers of potential compatibility. The written word has become increasingly important in modern day romance and the process of falling in love because online dating has returned us to the romantic notions of traditional letter writing where thousands of singles express themselves in the written form and successfully get to know each other over email.”
match.com pioneered online personals when it launched on the Web in 1995 and continues to lead this exciting and evolving category after more than a decade. Throughout its 13-year history, match.com has redefined the way people meet and fall in love and is credited with more marriages than any other site. Today, more than 15 million people around the world participate in the Match.com relationship network, providing a rich tapestry of ethnicities, interests, goals, ambitions, quirks, looks and personalities from which to choose. match.com operates leading subscription-based online dating sites in 37 countries, in 15 languages, spanning six continents. match.com also powers online dating on MSN across Europe, Asia, the United States and Latin America and is the premier provider of personals for Love@AOL. Match.com is an operating business of IAC (NASDAQ:IACI).
Penguin was established in 1935 and is one of the world’s leading consumer publishing businesses. Penguin publishing comprises the following imprints: Allen Lane, Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Michael Joseph, Penguin, Penguin Classics, Puffin and Viking. Penguin has offices in 15 countries and is part of the international media company Pearson. Penguin is home to the most prestigious list of authors in the UK, publishing a range of award-winning, best-selling authors including Nick Hornby, Zadie Smith, Jamie Oliver, Marian Keyes, Jeremy Clarkson, Michael Moore, Melvin Burgess, Roald Dahl, Eric Carle, Madonna, Charlie Higson.
