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How Bumble Could Inject Energy into An Exhausted Dating Market
✨ If they wanted to, they would ✨
Bumble’s rebrand to expand market share flopped with users, providing a case study in what happens when brand is used as a bandaid for a business model that’s fundamentally at odds with user goals
Who will love this
Serial swipers
Esther Perel stans
Anyone who’s ever been ghosted 👻 on dating apps
Dating app voyeurs
Today
This week Bumble rebranded, and I have a lot of thoughts as a brand marketer and as someone who’s done her share of swiping.
For the uninitiated, Bumble is a female founded app that positioned itself as the app where women make the first move. Bumble teased a really big rebrand, but released a very mediocre set of feature updates for dating app users - the majority of whom are looking for a long term partner.
I have so much empathy for the Bumble team this week. Shipping new creative work into the world is super hard, and should be celebrated. That being said, I think the marketing have been set up to fail their users, and it’s a really good opportunity to dive into the reasons companies rebrand, the pressures publicly traded companies face, and what happens when you disappoint your core audience.
The background to Bumble’s rebrand:
📉 Slumping stock, down 85% from an opening day high of $75, a bruising Q4 $32 million net loss on revenue of $273.6 million
🌏 42M monthly active users around the world
👯♀️ A softening market, with downloads down 16% down from the pandemic high point and only half of Gen Z saying they were involved in romantic relationships, compared to three quarters of Boomers and Gen Xers
👩⚖️ Declining trust, with The Match Group, who own Tinder, Hinge and the League, battling a class action suit, claiming that the apps are designed for indefinite dependency
👩💼 A CEO switcheroo, with founder Whitney Wolfe departing and Lidiane Jones (former Slack CEO) joining in January, plus layoffs of 30% of staff in February
My take: Brand strategy should support business strategy, but if your business strategy is at odds with your customer’s goals, you’re going to have a problem.
Let’s dive in 🐝
Amanda
TLDR: Starting four days before launch, Bumble teased a rebrand and a “wake-up call" for dating, launching last Friday in 10 countries with out of home and digital ads repopulating their Instagram feed with yellow noise (‘for sleepy, sleepy girls’, the account quipped), ironically captioned art and Bumble branded eye masks. The message: dating is exhausting. So true! So good!
Also, can we get a bit of commotion for Bumble’s in-house creative studio, who did this work? 🥰
People ate it up.
“I HOPE BUMBLE IS TEACHING MEN HOW TO DATE”
“I can’t wait for me to meet my future husband here.”
“whoa, is bumble like, actually gonna be helpful with dating for once?”
In between the slightly manicly-hopeful optimism, there were undertones of “online dating is a trashfire, please send help.”
The Launch: We’ve Changed, So You Don’t Have To
But when Bumble released the full rebrand four days later, though the headlines were triumphant (“Women on Bumble no longer have to make the first move”), the comments…were not.
They key message begged the question (as did customers): what actually changed?
The changes:
First moves for all. Women no longer have to make the first move (a major shift for the platform, which founder Whitney Wolf Herd started to “give women more control”)
Opening Moves. A feature which allows people to set a default conversation starter for anyone who matches with them.
Dating intentions. Set badges indicating what you’re looking for from “intimacy, without commitment”, “life partner” and “ethical nonmonogamy.”
Fresh new look. Logo update and yellow color change
People were, understandably frustrated:
“are the new changes in the room with us?”
“Don’t bother with a refresh/rebrand until you find a way to penalize dudes for swiping yes on everyone. Your app literally caters to them.”
“What are the changes though? 🤨”
“y’all let go your whole staff….. for this??? 🧐”
Reminder: appealing to more users and abandoning your core is a great way to appeal to precisely no one.
🎲 The Problem: The House Always Wins
Bumble doesn’t have a branding problem. It has a business problem. Brand and marketing can only go so far (and it’s one of the reasons the CMO role is the role with the shortest tenure in the C suite). If Bumble wants to future proof themselves, I think they need to fundamentally rethink their business not as a dating app, but as a platform for kind connection (their stated mission).
Bumble’s business model isn’t set up to reward and facilitate connection.
It feels borderline unethical to market apps like Bumble to people when the user goals are at odds with the business goals, and this rebrand made it clear just how at odds they are.
This is part and parcel of being part of a publicly listed company that’s beholden to shareholders, but the kicker is that when women date online, they are putting their wellbeing on the line. See also: the women or bear discourse.
🖤 The opportunity: An opinionated product
📱 Opinionated products breed passionate customers. Every app thinks they help users “find love.” Most are just variations of Tinder. Dating apps need to stop becoming enamored with matches and start becoming enamored with facilitating real and safe connections.
Stronger opinion: swiping sucks. Do less of it.
Stronger opinion: you should date this way.
Stronger opinion: a full set of matches doesn’t mean you’ll find love. Making sure you’re nurturing real connections is the only thing that matters.
Tying the way someone uses a dating app to a specific set of behaviors is what matters. You saw Hinge do this with Y. They convinced you that X means you’re productive. It’s the wrong metric IMO but that’s how they built their user base.
If someone were trying to get a dating app off the ground (in this economy?!), I’d hire Esther Perel as an advisor, use her games and talks the foundation for the default dating experience and start from there. That would do worlds of work for differentiating in this space where everyone largely does the same minor improvements in different colorways.
✨ The rebrand I would have loved to see:
🏈 Monday morning quarterback alert. If dating apps generally, are facing a lack of trust, and Gen Z are craving real connection, I would have loved to see Bumble make a radical shift to align their business model with customer goals and lean into the art, science and magic of connection to establish Bumble as the dating app for real connection.
Grow awareness of Bumble as the brand that facilitates real connection. I’d love to see Bumble sponsoring research and content with The Gottmans, Esther Perel, Couples Therapy, with a goal of helping people understand and foster meaningful connections.
Nudge daters to be on their best behavior. What if Bumble’s product encouraged people to be on their best behavior? What if ghosting was penalized, responsiveness and meeting in real life was rewarded, and generally - the platform’s opinion was that connection is valuable and should be treated with care?
Surfacing user insights on real connection. Ostensibly, Bumble are sitting on a treasure trove of rich data on the characteristics of successful matches. I’d love to see Bumble owning that data to help users make better decisions. For example, does linking social accounts to a profile increase the chances you’ll find someone? Do 74% of Bumble relationships meet in real life within the first week of matching? Show us the receipts, Bumble.
Celebrate magic. Build serendipity into the platform and celebrate magic. What if Bumble hosted a missed connections board? Missed connections are as popular on TikTok as they were on Craigslist. Build ad campaigns to tell the stories of real couples, like the old couples in When Harry Met Sally, or the stories of happy one & done dates.
Your Homework
Avoid Bumble’s fumble by aligning your business strategy, your brand strategy, and your customer needs.
What problem are people paying you to solve?
How do you make money?
Why do you tell people you solve that problem?
Are the answers cohesive? If not, you’re going to have problems.
P.S. Three ways I work with brands
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If you’re a dating app exec who wants to prioritize real connection, I’m a strategist on the hunt for big, meaningful problems to solve. Book a discovery call with me, here.
I’m launching a program to help founders and marketers set the right brand marketing plan and then work their plan based on real time customer feedback. I’ve made it really affordable, because I don’t think building great brands has to break the bank. If that’s something you’re interested in, drop me a DM and I’ll send you the details.
That’s all!
Happy Friday,
Amanda