With the two-year deal announced Thursday, Lavalife is signed up to contribute content and become the exclusive sponsor to Playboy.com's newly created Sex & Dating channel, which offers features on sex, dating, relationships and the single life. It also provides surfers a direct link to Lavalife’s extensive database of singles profiles and connects with Lavalife's mobile- and voice-dating services.
Lavalife CEO Marina Glogovac said her company counts 1.2 million members, who are looking for love in more than 60 markets throughout U.S., Canada and Australia. She said that nearly 1.3 million messages are exchanged every day on the site, which is ranked among the top 10 social-networking sites.
Glogovac said the Playboy deal with her Toronto-based company is a natural fit and one that will help spike traffic for both sites.
“Lavalife has long been a leader in the singles and personals industry, and our entertaining content and unique singles offer the Playboy audience a new way to explore connections around the world,” Glogovac said.
Ten-year-old Lavalife was purchased by Vertrue Inc., a marketer of membership programs, in 2004.
Playboy Vice President Jeremy Westin concurred that the deal appears to be a good pairing for Lavalife and its online division, which is the largest of the company’s three business segments and accounts for 60 percent of its corporate revenue.
“Given Lavalife's lifestyle brand positioning and its multiplatform approach to singles communities, we believe they are the perfect premium dating partner for this initiative,” Westin said.
Terms of the partnership between the companies were not disclosed.