OPW INTERVIEW -- Mar 29 -- Eddy Ankrett is the Chairman and CEO of Dateline Holdings, PLC, which runs Dateline in the UK. He has big plans for the Dateline brand. (Full Disclosure: WhiteLabelDating.com is a client of Courtland Brooks). - Mark Brooks
What is the founding story of Dateline?
Dateline was established in 1966. It is the oldest established and most respected dating brand in the UK. It was started as an offline dating service when people didn’t have the Internet and was, in a way, computerized before the Internet. It has carried on from offline dating into what is now Dateline.co.uk.
What does Dateline offer compared to other services, and how has it evolved?
Dateline has three services. One is Dateline Classic, which is for people who don’t want to use the Internet – it’s purely a paper driven service. We put adverts into major newspapers and magazines in the UK, and people fill in a profile and send it back to Dateline. We then put them into the computer system; we do matching, and we send them three matches in the post.
We then have the Dateline.co.uk service, which is a typical Internet dating service that is very successful in its own right.
Then we have a brand called Dateline Platinum, which is the combination of the Internet and a personal service. Each applicant is visited in their own home and given background checks and interviewed.
What markets is Dateline focusing on?
Dateline is a UK based company. Part of the plan of partnering with WhiteLabelDating.com is to develop our service throughout Europe, and possibly throughout the world.
What is your relationship with WhiteLabelDating.com, and what made you decide to work with them?
About eight years ago I was Managing Director of Dateline, for about four years. I’ve been in the dating industry for 16 years, and kept an eye on Dateline because it’s a major brand. About six months ago I bought back Dateline with the backing of some fantastic fund managers. So it’s back in the hands of people who know dating. I’ve put a team of experienced dating professionals together. When we put the team together we asked ourselves “Who is the best company to support us from an online point of view?”
After some research, I came across Ross Williams of WhiteLabelDating.com, and found that his member conversion statistics, specifically for converting registered members into paying members, was the best I had ever seen. He also had the ability to make Google AdWords pay-per-click work. So if we spend $200,000 on pay-per-click, he has the ability to get $300,000 back.
He’s young and very progressive, as is his company, and we’ve now formed a fantastic working relationship. Since Dateline has been relaunched on the WhiteLabelDating.com system WhiteLabelDating.com say they’ve never seen a site with such fantastic statistics for not only registrations on Dateline, but also conversions to paying members. To say the partnership is a success is putting it mildly.
Why are you still running an offline dating service? Is there really a future in offline dating?
Dateline, to my knowledge, is one of the only companies in the country, if not the world, that is making online dating work with offline dating. Offline dating has a great future, in my opinion, because of the security check and the face-to-face element. I remember a UK TV program about a dating scam where loads of people, I think in Africa, were joining online dating sites and pretending to be members. So the Internet is open, and I’m sure things are being done to stop those sorts of scammers. WhiteLabelDating.com has some fantastic products designed to stop scammers reaching online members. But I do believe that offline dating has a fantastic future. I’ve spent the last 16 years in the offline/online dating space, and I’m very passionate about it.
At the end of the day you have to find the interviewers. You have to train them. They have to be presentable. They have to have experience. Dating is such a major industry. I know Ross at WhiteLabelDating.com has some solutions to increase the feeling of security and to stop scammers. People must feel secure when they visit dating websites.
What's your personal goal for Dateline?
Dating is a fabulous industry that brings phenomenal rewards. I’ve always said, I’m 63 now, and when I die, all I want etched on my tombstone is ‘This guy helped millions of people form happy relationships.’ And at the end of the day, what better job in the world could you have than helping people meet other people to form healthy, happy and successful relationships?
There are many ways to stop fake users from bothering legitimate users of online dating sites. However, the site owners would rather have the inflated user numbers than stop fakes. The tools are out there but apparently it is not good business to stop your users from being bothered or prayed upon.
Who would have thunk it.
Posted by: Mark Harrison | Mar 29, 2008 at 04:11 PM
Mark - just had a look at your blog and profile, not sure why you posted that comment but let me assure you that we're doing more than most to remove scammers from our network.
We're the only white label dating platform to integrate with Iovation which allows us to automatically block scammers from our network.
We have a large support team based at our headquarters in the UK who are dedicated to supporting members and look for any suspicious activity.
As you say - the tools are out there and we're actually one of the few dating platforms to use them.
I suspect your post was directed to the industry generally rather than Dateline or WhiteLabelDating.com in particular and it is certainly true that the rest of the industry does need to play catch up and start using these tools to remove scammers.
Posted by: Ross Williams | Mar 31, 2008 at 04:21 AM
Really? Wow! then that means Dateline was already in business before the internet? I've been looking for the perfect dating site. But I'm scared that it might be a scam or anything so I'm not trying it out. But with this credibility, now I know where i want to try my first online dating. Thanks for this information!
-faith-
Posted by: pay per click services San Diego | Jan 15, 2009 at 01:25 AM
I think anything that can be done to stop the scammers is good but you will always be playing catchup with them I feel. Maybe better educated users is the answer and allowing them to easily report profiles they feel are fake.
Have to confess I hadn't realises Dateline had been around so long. I do agree there will always be a market for non-Internet dating agencies as not everyone likes using the Internet and certainly Speed-dating was doing well in the UK a couple of years ago - people do like face to face.
We've recently signed up with White Label Dating as we liked their business model - it allows mimimal start up costs but will hopefully pay off if we put the hard work in.
Ultimately it is about converting people as well - great having 1 million members but if they aren't paying members that's a lot of overhead!
Posted by: Dance-Singles.com | Jun 26, 2010 at 06:05 AM
I think that it's a good idea to keep the offline dating industry alive. Some people still prefer to keep their information away from the internet and this is fair enough. I could also imagine that it'd be useful for elderly people who aren't too adept at using computers too!
professional dating
Posted by: Jim Foley | May 21, 2012 at 07:38 AM