A trend rising among several dating apps of late is taking meetups offline by hosting in-person events for users to connect outside of the endless digital swirl of swipes, likes and chats that often go nowhere. So when Yuzu, Match Group’s new dating and social app for the Asian community, launched in January 2024, Cindy Lim, Yuzu’s head of brand, jumped right into an event strategy to drive brand awareness and app downloads. A team of one who works with agency partners, Lim coordinated a bunch of mixers around the country to meet young adults where they are and start building community around the app.
For year two, Yuzu went bigger and, in conjunction with Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, kicked off the #hAAPIwithYuzu campaign at the beginning of May, a celebration of AAPI culture through food, wellness and entrepreneurship. The “hAAPI” name is a play on the AAPI acronym while also standing for “Heritage, Appetite and Asian Pride Ignited.”
Aiming to amplify AAPI voices, honor cultural traditions and spark connections, Yuzu took a multipronged approach with its monthlong campaign that encompasses networking, culinary tastings and screenings of its three-part “hAAPIMeal” docuseries (produced by Schema Agency) in L.A., San Francisco and New York City. Chefs Nico de Leon of Lasita, Jiyoon Jang of Modu, and Keegan Fong of Woon star in the docuseries, and all three appeared at the first screening event in L.A. on May 6, participating in a panel and bringing food from their restaurants for attendees to sample. The 100-plus attendees wrapped the evening with a karaoke session, an activity that popped up at each screening event.
As the #hAAPIwithYuzu program continues this month, Lim takes us through the campaign’s three main themes, and shares how in-person events have helped grow the new app’s engaged fan base and foster relationships that endure beyond Yuzu.
Cindy Lim, Head of Brand, Yuzu
Event Marketer: What was it like working on the launch of Yuzu?
Cindy Lim: This was the perfect role that I always wanted. I started my career focusing on Asian counterculture, and I’ve always been very passionate about connecting Asian people together through networking and events, even during my time in corporate consulting. Starting out, it was a lot of thinking of creative ways to amplify the Yuzu messaging. The first year, obviously, is the most hectic and the busiest. I think I traveled almost every other week because I was out there meeting real people. It makes a difference when users know that there’s a person behind it, versus just a random app that launched. So I was kind of doing a roadshow, hitting L.A. a lot but also Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, New York and Boston, meeting young Asians to spread the word about Yuzu.
EM: Take us through the different phases of #hAAPIwithYuzu.
CL: The campaign focuses on three key themes. One is “hAAPIMeal.” Food is so central to our culture that we really wanted to play on something with our love of food. When Asians get together, they celebrate and start connections over food, and when we talked with everyone, they called out the importance of different foods and boba for “hAAPIMeal.”
The second theme is “hAAPI Business Spotlight,” offering a platform where Asian founders can showcase their brands through us, but also where our community can discover and support Asian-led businesses. We’re spotlighting 50 brands on our social media channels in five categories: beauty and wellness, fashion and accessories, food and beverage, community hangout spot, and lifestyle and community. And we’re also participating in an AAPI business mixer of entrepreneurs in New York City.
And the last theme is wellness, which is really important to the younger generation to take a moment for their mental and physical well-being. We have an ongoing campaign called #SelfCareWithYuzu that started on Valentine’s Day and takes the focus off of finding a partner on our app. Instead, I wanted the messaging to be more about figuring yourself out first with support from Yuzu (an in-app challenge rewards users for prioritizing their well-being). And then, they can get out there and present their best selves to people on Yuzu. We’re ending AAPI Month with a yoga class on May 31 in Brooklyn, NY, and working with an AAPI-founded yoga wear brand, gifting yoga sets to the attendees.
EM: How do you gather feedback from users for the kinds of events they want to see?
CL: We did a survey last summer, and around 70 percent of the users said they wanted IRL events tied to Yuzu. We also had a few anecdotes from our former users who said, “Oh, I matched with someone on Yuzu, but I actually met them at a Yuzu event, and we’ve been best friends ever since.” I hear that quite a lot. One of the taglines that we were testing was, “Start as friends and see where it goes,” and I’ve seen that tagline come to life. There was this big Yuzu friend group when we launched with about 200 people in the group chat. There were so many couples that came from that. They would travel to raves, meet up in Vegas and do Secret Santa.
EM: What learnings are you taking away after programming events for a monthlong campaign?
CL: I tried to make it a pretty parallel experience in all the different cities with scalable elements, like the screening, karaoke, swag items and tablescapes of food. Obviously, L.A. had the special perk of having the chefs from the docuseries there, but I wanted to do events that are centered around the same thing. The New York City event was much smaller and more intimate than the other two screenings because, in general, it’s much harder to find large-space venues in New York, and they’re more expensive. I’m spending less in L.A. and San Francisco to get a bigger space.
The three different “hAAPI” pillars have different purposes, but overall, the underlying core is that community is what makes everything possible, especially when it comes to social experiences. And Yuzu hopes to be a part of that journey, whatever the touchpoint, whether consumers download Yuzu and match with someone, or they come along with a friend to a Yuzu event, or they hear about Yuzu from influencers or the documentary featuring the local restaurants. Yes, we do have the Yuzu logo on everything we produce, but I don’t want to force it. Sometimes subtlety is more beautiful.
Photo credits: Marielle Sales; Mal Tayag; Anjelica Jardiel; Courtesy of Yuzu
