Industry regulatory body the Online Dating Association recently appointed top executives from eHarmony and Lovestruck to their board of directors.
eHarmony’s UK Marketing Director Romain Bertrand and the co-founder and CTO of Lovestruck, Laurence Holloway, both joined the board this year.
The ODA ask those who are interested to formally express their interest, after which they are considered for appointment.
The Chairman of the ODA, Duncan Cunningham said: “Although I believe the Association has managed to achieve a great deal in a relatively short time, adding new blood to the board will help us to drive things forward to a new level.
“Much has still to be done, so I am sure that their combined experience and understanding of the dating landscape will add greatly to the strengths of the association as a whole.”
We spoke to Romain Bertrand about his appointment, and eHarmony’s relationship with the regulatory body.
Why do you think the work of the ODA is so important?
The work of the ODA is very important. By ensuring that standards within the industry remain as high as possible, they protect customers across the board. It’s also vital to have a body with the code and ability to take impartial action if users are experiencing issues. Beyond this, the ODA acts as a unifying voice and point of contact for regulators.
Why did eHarmony sign up to be a member?
eHarmony.co.uk was actually one of the 13 founding members of the ODA, which signals our intent when it comes to championing consumers and contributing to making online dating a safer, more transparent and easier to navigate place. It’s great to have the opportunity to continue our leadership in terms of data privacy and fraud prevention and to share our six years of experience with the rest of the industry.
What will your role entail?
We will offer our perspective and knowledge on the UK dating market, as one of its best-established companies.
The ODA will also be able to rely on eHarmony.co.uk to come up with new ideas in terms of the scope and priorities of the ODA and help the organisation keep track of latest trends within online dating and consumer technology as a result of our own extensive research.
What does eHarmony have planned for 2015?
Our recently implemented campaign — the brains behind the butterflies — is set to run on television, while our in-house eH Advice blog and social channels will be adding more unique content to inform and entertain our members. As an extension of this, we will continue to run more thought leadership PR campaigns, leveraging our vast data and expertise in the sector.
In this way, we hope to engage consumers and get across to them what eHarmony.co.uk is about — using our deep understanding of relationships to create meaningful connections between people.
Always important too is to keep improving user experience on eHarmony.co.uk across mobile, desktop and tablet, ensuring our service moves with tech advances and remains easy and fun to use.
Visit the ODA’s site here.