“You'll end up with cats”
25% of Gen Z women and 20% of men have feared it. 40% say it pressures them to date.
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Date Scare‑Free
Our research showed that many young people date out of fear of being lonely, not because they want to. So for Halloween, we turned the scariest things people hear about being single into horror-movie posters, and put them in cinemas.
40 cinemas
New York · Chicago · Los Angeles
3 horror posters
Oct 19 – Nov 8, 2026
Insight
Dating out of fear, not desire
44%of Gen Z daters have used a dating app out of fear of being single.
25% · 18%of Gen Z women and men have entered a relationship for the same reason.
Idea
Show the pressure for what it is
“You’ll end up with cats.” “There’s no life after 30.” We took the warnings singles hear from family and friends and gave them the treatment they deserve: B-movie horror posters, placed right next to real Halloween releases in cinema lobbies.
Activation
One insight, every touchpoint
Posters in 40 cinemas, a PR pitch built on our T.R.U.T.H. Report data, a press kit that doubled as a creator kit, creator and owned social, paid media, and a Halloween takeover of the app itself.
Three fears, three posters
“Your biological clock is ticking”
38% of Gen Z women and 34% of men have feared it. 59% and 58% say it pressures them to date.
“There's no life after 30”
32% of women and 34% of men have feared it. 63% and 65% say it pressures them to date.
In the wild
The press kit
To pitch the data, we built a press kit that went to journalists and creators alike: a dating scare banishment kit “for you and your single friends.”
- A prayer candle with the Saint Patroness of Intentional Dating, and a prayer that teases the data: “Spare them from joining the 44% of Gen Z who’ve used dating apps for fear of being single.”
- Fear vs. truth cards for each scare: the research numbers on one side, a relationship scientist’s answer on the other.
- Matches (“If you’re still single, here are some matches”), the posters and a cotton pouch to “cleanse their space of invasive questions and grim predictions.”
Creators & social
Creators unboxed the kit and took on the fears in their own voice, while Hily’s own channels ran a Halloween series with our mascot, Violette. The best creator videos then ran as allowlisted ads in our seasonal campaign on TikTok and Meta.
In-app and the stores
Product
A Halloween theme
Special in-app language and visual effects, so the campaign lived inside the product, not just around it.
Product
Halloween openers
Themed conversation starters that got users a reply 17% more often.
Acquisition
Custom store pages & creatives
A custom App Store page and matching creatives on the App Store, TikTok and Meta, so every click landed on the same story.
“We show the pressure to be in a relationship for what it truly is: a cheap horror plot. And not wanting to date right now is perfectly fine.”
Julia Kolesnyk, Head of Brand & Communications at Hily, in the campaign press release
Results
+17%
more replies for users who opened with a Halloween opener
40cinemas in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles
FOX 5 DCcovered our data and invited our relationship expert on air
75%positive sentiment in reactions to the campaign
97%repeat open rate on the data pitch
My role
Head of Brand & Communications at Hily. I led the activation from the research insight to launch: my in-house team developed the creative and produced the posters, press kit and content, and ran PR and creator outreach, with me setting the direction.