Ahrefs Podcast

This is how viral marketing really works | Delbert Ty (Coffee Meets Bagel)

Jan 21, 2025

Delbert Ty, CMO at Coffee Meets Bagel, has a rich background in viral marketing from his time at Procter & Gamble and Circles.Life. He reveals the secrets behind successful campaigns, stressing the importance of storytelling and audience understanding. Delbert discusses unconventional tactics that often challenge traditional ideas, like his hilarious billboard stunt and an innovative $3 data plan from a vending machine. He emphasizes the need for courage in marketing, balancing wild creativity with strategic objectives, and even highlights when ‘bad’ ideas can lead to success.

01:52:13

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Episode guests

Delbert Ty

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Delbert Ty emphasizes the importance of aligning marketing messages with audience interests to achieve viral success, as seen in past campaigns.

A bold and unconventional approach, like directing non-serious relationship seekers to competitors, can effectively reinforce a brand's core values in marketing.

The integration of AI in creative marketing processes can enhance ideation while ensuring authenticity and audience engagement remains central to strategies.

Deep dives

Delbert's Viral Campaign Success at Circles Life

Delbert shares how a bold marketing campaign at Circles Life turned the brand into an overnight success. To address the initial obscurity of the company, Delbert utilized a groundbreaking product offer of 20GB for $20, significantly better than competitors' plans. Inspired by a strategy from Procter & Gamble, he created a fake telco, vandalized its ads in a comedic twist, and generated buzz. This unconventional idea resonated culturally in Singapore, leading to extensive media coverage and effectively raising brand awareness and user acquisition.

Intro

2min

Viral Marketing Insights

11min

A Bold Approach to Serious Relationship Marketing

4min

The Bold $3 Data Plan: A Marketing Experiment

31min

Embracing Unconventional Marketing

28min

The Intersection of Physical and Digital Marketing

7min

Balancing Creative and Conventional Marketing Strategies

2min

Harnessing Viral Marketing Strategies

23min

Navigating Authenticity and AI in Creative Marketing

5min

What's the key to creating a viral marketing campaign? Meet Delbert Ty, CMO at Coffee Meets Bagel, a popular dating app that sets itself apart by courting only those interested in serious relationships.

Before joining CmB, Delbert worked as Head of Marketing at Circles.Life - a Singaporean telco - where he grew revenue to 9 figures in 5 years.

And even before that he worked at Procter & Gamble, where he was responsible for such well-known brands as Duracell, Tide & Pantene.

During his time at these companies Delbert has pulled off quite a few hilarious creative marketing campaigns.

Some of them failed, but others brought lots of new customers and tons of brand awareness.

In our interview, we discussed quite a few of Delbert's viral campaigns and tried to deconstruct what made them successful and how you could replicate that success.

In this episode:

(0:00) Intro

(02:17) Three biggest marketing campaigns 

(06:44) Vandalizing a billboard

(11:10) Buying out telco contracts (failed)

(13:10) Coffee Meets Bagel tells users to leave

(16:30) "Free money" from a vending machine

(25:01) The cost (not in $$$) of viral campaigns

(30:10) Courage in viral marketing

(35:43) Setting objectives for viral campaigns

(41:13) Measuring the impact of viral campaigns 

(47:20) When bad ideas are actually good ideas