Pop culture power play: Checkers plugs into Tinder Swindler hype

Source: Screenshot

For those who have not yet seen Tinder Swindler, and are likely puzzled over the countless memes and articles that have spilled across the internet, the documentary tells the story of Israeli-born fraudster Simon Leviev (originally named Shimon Hayut) who poses as the fake son of a real diamond business mogul. Leviev wooes women on dating sites like Tinder with his 5-star, jet-setting lifestyle, and forms with the women what they believe to be a genuine relationship before he defrauds them - all under (seemingly) very dramatic circumstances.

With the documentary making headlines across the world, Shoprite Group’s digital business unit ShopriteX thought it opportune to have ‘Don’t Get Swindled’ as a shopping theme on its Sixty60 on-demand retail app. Under this umbrella theme are hilarious product categories that reference plot points and famous quotes from the doccie.

For example, ‘'My Enemies are After Me’ houses energy drinks, ‘Peter Hurt’ has medical supplies, ‘Billionaires Club’ offers sparkling wines, ‘DIY Five Star Dinner’ houses dinner ingredients and ‘Can’t Max Out This One’ simply has an Xtra Savings rewards card.

Shoprite Checkers to form joint venture with Sixty60 delivery partner RTT

Nqobile Dludla  13 Dec 2021

Explaining the inspiration behind the entertaining initiative, Nasiphi Wase, e-commerce coordinator at ShopriteX told Bizcommunity, “The Checkers Sixty60 team watched the Tinder Swindler movie on Netflix and we were inspired to create a Sixty60 ‘shopping mission’ (conveniently grouped products that make it faster to shop) to reference Simon's famous phrases or important parts of the storyline.”

“The ambition is to reimagine grocery retail by doing things differently and Sixty60 is encouraged by the feedback received so far,” she adds.

Wase, who is credited with driving the Checkers Sixty60 Tinder Swindler initiative, says the public’s response has been overwhelming, particularly on Twitter and TikTok.

Simon Leviev strikes back

Observing this growing traction on social media, local production house Panther Punch, run by Glen Biderman Pam and Oliver Booth, teamed up with Mike Sharman of creative communications agency Retroviral to create a spoof in which Simon Leviev (played by Biderman Pam) berates his newfound enemy Checkers Sixty60 for stealing his intellectual property and blocking him from the app.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Glen Biderman-Pam (@glenbidermanpam)

In an interview with eNCA, Biderman Pam explains how the new Tinder Swindler spoof came about. “Obviously the Tinder Swindler was extremely relevant this week on social platforms, and Checkers very cleverly managed to reflect the Tinder Swindler on their app, and we thought that was a great opportunity to jump on and do a spoof of that with the traction they had already gained.”

Biderman Pam, Booth and Sharman hastily got together to devise a short script, which they ran by the Shoprite Group before shooting the parody and releasing it this past Friday.

Both the Sixty60 app “shopping mission” and the parody have been shared widely on social media and praised for the entertaining culturally-relevant campaign, while getting consumers to drive organic word-of-mouth marketing for the Sixty60 shopping app.

View some of the Twitter commentary below.

Get the latest Tinder Swindler deals from @CheckersSA Sixty60.

Clever marketing! pic.twitter.com/sAsy3Kewbb

— Louis Nel (@LouisNel) February 10, 2022