Case No. EWHC-941-(IPEC)

” had scores of 37% for TOM awareness, 48% for spontaneous awareness and 74% for aided awareness. Even without the figures for Match Affinity (a sub-brand set up by Match in 2010, which itself scored 15% for aided awareness), Match’s figures were substantially higher than those of its nearest competitor, eHarmony, which had scores of, respectively, 10%, 24% and 48%. On this basis, TNS concluded that “Match is, by far, leading the market in terms of awareness…” and it paid tribute (at p.38) to the effectiveness of “Match’s campaigns”, noting that the campaign media recalled by customers was “overwhelmingly TV”.29.In contrast to the 2009 report, in the commentary to its 2010 report, TNS generally referred to “Match” as the name of the business. For example, the “Objectives” listed on p.5 were to (1) “Follow the development of the Match’s brands and of its competitors”; (2) “Evaluate the performance of Match’s latest advertising campaigns” and (3) “measure the impact of Match’s recent Match Making brand launches…”. Then, at pp.10-12, the 2010 report stated that its “Main Findings” were: “Awareness: Match is the clear leader”; “Match has a large leadership in terms of awareness…”; “Match has one of the market’s strongest image…”; “Match users’ satisfaction is only at an average level”; and “Match is the brand with the strongest growth potential”. Similarly, in its “Recommendations” (p.13), the 2010 report noted that: “Match now has the market’s strongest level of awareness and needs to nourish this brand with content”, and that “As market leader, Match will be the first brand to benefit from this market growth”. Whilst the report makes some use of the name “match.com”, this was confined to the various tables and to the footer of the title pages for the report’s sections, where it used the match.com logo (as shown in paragraph 18 above).30.This tendency in some people to refer to the business as “Match” (as opposed to “match.com”) is also apparent from the fact that the customer awareness figures mentioned above were stated to be in relation to “Match.com/Match”. This was consistent with the evidence of Mr Riviere that the figure for TOM awareness which appears in the various reports included consumers whose spontaneous response was simply “Match” as well as those whose response was “Match.com”.31.TNS report 2011 - in its 2011 report, TNS reverted to referring to the business as “match.com”. It reported that “Match.com is still leading the market” (p.7) based on scores of 28% for TOM awareness, 43% for spontaneous awareness and 69% for aided awareness (again, not including the separate figures for Match Affinity) as against scores for eHarmony (Match’s closest competitor) of 7%, 18% and 53% respectively. At p.8, the 2011 report noted that “Match.com’s awareness most comes from its TV ads” and that the awareness of Match Affinity was also “driven above all by TV”, although internet ads also played a part.32.TNS report 2012 – in contrast to the 2011 report, the much more extensive commentary of TNS’ report of July 2012 contained many references to “Match” as the business name. For example, it concluded (at p.10) that “Match clearly leads the singles market in terms of awareness” and (at p.19) that “Match is still dominating the market, with the highest (and increasing) top of mind”. These conclusions were based on scores for match.com of 31% for TOM awareness, 44% for spontaneous awareness and 70% for aided awareness (not including Match Affinity’s scores), with eHarmony scoring 8%, 22% and 58%.33.Later IPSOS reports - given that Muzmatch started operating in around April to May 2011, the later reports (produced by IPSOS) are of less significance to the issues in this case although they continued to show that there was a very high level of brand awareness and TOM awareness of the Match brand which, after 2015, also included the Match Device Mark.34.As in most of the earlier reports, IPSOS’ July 2013 report used “Match.com” and “Match” almost interchangeably when referring to the business, (see especially at p.86) as did IPSOS’ January 2015 report. By contrast, its 2014 report tended to refer simply to “Match”. In its 2016 and subsequent Reports, IPSOS displayed the Match Device Mark or the device with an “M” and a heart (as shown in paragraph 21 above) but in its commentary referred to the business simply as “Match”.35.Summaries of the brand awareness figures - in his evidence, Mr Riviere provided the following summaries of the brand awareness figures provided by these reports in respect of the Match brand. These figures, and particularly the TOM awareness figures, serve to emphasise how well known the Match brand was in the market at the relevant times and, in my judgment, justify Mr Riviere’s comment that, in 2012, Match dominated the market. Match.com/Match