WOULD you swipe right on the Scottish Greens?
In the run-up to the elections, users of LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr may have come across ads for the Scottish Greens.
In a new experimental campaign strategy, the party took out ads on Grindr to reach potential voters.
They believe that they are the first political party in the UK to use the platform for advertising.
Cami Glasgow, the Scottish Greens digital communications officer, told The National that the Greens chose Grindr to reach younger, LGBTQ+ demographics.
He said: “We were really keen to reach out to our core audience, which tends to be a younger, more progressive audience.
“For LGBT members of Gen Z, a lot of them are on dating apps.”
In the year and a half before the election, the Scottish Greens did significant research on strategies that smaller, left-wing parties in other countries had been using to advertise. They found that many parties used Grindr to promote local candidates.
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One of the key inspirations was the Australian Greens, who used Grindr as part of their 2022 election campaign. Party leader Adam Bates took out ads with text such as “You always come first with the Greens” and “Spice up Canberra with a third”.
Unlike their Australian counterparts, the Scottish Greens stayed away from cheeky innuendos, instead highlighting the party’s policies to support LGBTQ+ communities.
Glasgow said: “We thought that given the sort of tough time that LGBT people have had here, that it’s important that we communicate to them directly.”
Their ads read “Ban Conversion Therapy” and “Defend Trans Rights”, with text at the bottom telling people to vote for Scottish Greens on May 7.
“At a time when other political parties were taking a step back from the LGBT community over backlash from the [Gender Recognition Reform Act], we’re quite keen to be seen as standing alongside because it’s a core principle for us,” said Glasgow.
An ad criticising Reform was scrapped after they received the feedback that “When I’m on Grindr, I don’t want to see Nigel Farage.”
The Scottish Greens achieved their best result ever, winning their first two constituency seats in addition to 13 regional seats. This included the Scottish Parliament’s first two transgender MSPs.
While some people might not want to see political ads at all when they’re on dating apps, Glasgow thinks that they will be more receptive to the Greens given their track record supporting LGBTQ+ communities. That’s why he believes the Greens were the first UK party to use the platform.
Farhad Divecha, CEO of LGBT marketing agency Out Loud, said that LGBTQ+ communities are generally very attuned to pinkwashing and attempts to profit off of the community without showing solidarity.
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“Most LGBT individuals are very cognisant of when businesses and potentially political parties also target them with lazy marketing,” he said.
Lukasz Szulc, a professor in Digital Media and Culture at the University of Manchester, explained that it’s common for queer people on dating apps, including Grindr, to talk about political views. Many people explicitly state their politics in their bio through statements such as “No Tories” and some apps offer labels for different political orientations.
“Political decisions very often translate into real-life changes, especially for marginalised groups like LGBTQ community,” he said.
“It does matter for people.”
He added that users on Grindr skew towards left-wing parties, who are generally more vocal about queer and trans rights.
Over the past decade, many political candidates across the world have employed dating apps in their election campaigns.
In the US, supporters of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have used apps such as Tinder and Bumble to convince people to vote for their preferred candidate in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries.
In 2018, a Democratic candidate in New York City hosted a “Tinder-banking” event where his team reached out to potential voters through accounts on the app.
In the 2017 UK General Election, Labour activists also used Tinder bots to start conversations about Jeremy Corbyn with 18-25 year-olds in battleground constituencies.
The same activists went on to employ similar tactics in a Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants campaign to raise awareness about British Airlines’s alleged deportations of migrants.
Szulc said that it can be more of an ethical grey area when people are creating bots to interact with others without being explicit about their political intentions.
Tinder itself has also waded into non-partisan political campaigns, such as “Swipe the Vote” for the 2016 US elections, and “Give an X” for the 2024 UK election. In 2014, a survey of Grindr users gave the most accurate prediction of the final independence referendum results.
Divecha said that dating apps can be more effective in targeting certain audiences than traditional social media platforms.
“For a political party that wants to engage gay, bi and queer audiences, what is the best place in the UK they could currently advertise?” he said. “You can’t do that as well on something like Meta or Google, because you’re not allowed to target people based on their sexual orientation.”
“I think younger people are used to getting information from alternative sources,” said Szulc. “The advantage of doing it on dating apps is it’s maybe a little bit like canvassing, you’re going about your everyday life, you’re not looking actively for that ad, and then it’s putting this question on your mind.”
Glasgow said that Grindr, unlike other platforms, had clear terms and conditions for political ads which made it easier to navigate. He hopes that other platforms will put out more explicit guidance, as the Greens plan to continue using dating apps in future elections.
In Divecha’s view, all press is good press when it comes to election campaigns.
“It does feel like we live in a time where unfortunately the loud voices in the room get heard the most and drive the most action,” said Divecha. “If a political party wants to be heard and wants to cut through, they need to be in as many places as possible.”
Szulc hopes that this campaign will inspire other parties to think outside the box.
“I think one lesson is to try to think about alternative ways of reaching your people who could potentially be encouraged to vote,” he said. “Political parties have to be much more creative in how they are reaching different voters, especially younger voters, and especially now through different digital media.”
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