--- title: Movie at SXSW Uses Tinder as Marketing Stunt description: Tinder users at SXSW duped by marketing stunt for movie canonical: https://time.com/3746083/tinder-sxsw-catfishing-ex-machina/ author: Charlotte Alter article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-16T16:44:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:50.781Z og:title: Movie at SXSW Uses Tinder as Marketing Stunt og:description: Tinder users at SXSW duped by marketing stunt for movie og:url: https://time.com/3746083/tinder-sxsw-catfishing-ex-machina/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Movie at SXSW Uses Tinder as Marketing Stunt twitter:description: Tinder users at SXSW duped by marketing stunt for movie twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Next Time You Swipe Right, It Could Be a Marketing Stunt > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Mar 16, 2015 4:44 PM UTC  by [Charlotte Alter](https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/)  ## Charlotte Alter Senior Correspondent Mar 16, 2015 4:44 PM UTC All’s fair in love and marketing: a movie debuting at SXSW in Austin used the dating app Tinder as a marketing tool over the weekend, and some users were accidentally catfished. According to [Adweek](http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/tinder-users-sxsw-are-falling-woman-shes-not-what-she-appears-163486), Tinder users have been falling for another user called “Ava.” The only problem? “Ava” is actually a fake account to promote Ex Machina, a movie about robots debuting at SXSW last weekend. > [](https://twitter.com/Adweek/status/577098340225036288) “Ava” told one would-be-Tinder-hookup to check out her Instagram, which was packed with promotional materials for Ex Machina. And her photo is actually of Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, who plays a bot in the movie. So think before you swipe: you could be flirting with an ad. \[[Adweek](http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/tinder-users-sxsw-are-falling-woman-shes-not-what-she-appears-163486)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3746083/tinder-sxsw-catfishing-ex-machina/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3746083/tinder-sxsw-catfishing-ex-machina/"},"headline":"Next Time You Swipe Right, It Could Be a Marketing Stunt","datePublished":"2015-03-16T16:44:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:50.781Z","description":"Tinder users at SXSW duped by marketing stunt for movie","url":"https://time.com/3746083/tinder-sxsw-catfishing-ex-machina/","keywords":["Living","Dating","marketing","Tinder","SXSW","Robot","AI"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Charlotte Alter","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/charlotte-alter/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3746083/tinder-sxsw-catfishing-ex-machina/","name":"Next Time You Swipe Right, It Could Be a Marketing Stunt"}}]}] ```