A new friendship-building network, FriendshipDNA.com, has hired Toronto-based Maverick as its PR and communications agency of record. The social network, which has been in development for two years, is designed to connect like-minded people to build real offline friendships.
Backed by psychometrics, a field of study that can measure personality, attitudes and beliefs, the site takes users through a personality test based on 86 attributes. It then matches them with local individuals who have similar and complementary characteristics.
“There is nothing out there that connects people on a personality basis for a platonic friendship,” said Erin Geimer, co-founder of FriendshipDNA Inc. “Where do people go if they don’t know where to meet someone new? Well, FriendshipDNA.com.”
The Toronto-based startup did a soft launch with online advertising in May, but wants to tell a fuller story through PR. “Society has a problem with loneliness,” said Julie Rusciolelli, president of Maverick, which will support the launch through media and blogger relations. “There are a plethora of social media sites, but we’re more alone now than ever before.”
Maverick will target health and wellness media outlets, “making sure that people understand that isolation is a big issue in our society,” said Rusciolelli. The agency will also target lifestyle and other consumer media to raise awareness of the platform, which currently has 1,000 users, and get people to sign up.
Loneliness is certainly a hot topic right now. In February, Oprah Winfrey launched her “Just Say Hello” initiative, which aims to help people combat loneliness. And the media has reported on studies that show loneliness can have a big impact on health and mortality.
“FriendshipDNA is going to be very important to a lot of people,” said Geimer. “But it isn’t necessarily about being lonely. It’s about having a more enriched life with the people around you. You can be very well loved and have lots of friends but still not have anyone to go to the movies with.”
Maverick is also developing the media launch for Geimer’s book FriendshipDNA: Are Meaningful Friendships an Endangered Species?, which is co-authored by Jan Fiore and illustrates the rationale behind the site.
FriendshipDNA is also working with Toronto comedian Christina Walkinshaw, who wrote about 50 Tinder dates and will now blog about her FriendshipDNA.com “dates” at ResistingMarriage.tumblr.com.
“Even some of the guys I met on Tinder expressed a need to meet new platonic friends. A lot of their friends are married with kids now, and can’t just fly out the door to meet for a beer,” said Walkinshaw, in a release.
“I think FriendshipDNA.com is a real breakthrough social idea that simply connects people with other people with similar interests, without the worry of sex talk the entire time.”
