Bumble, a dating app that self-describes as designed for women, has removed a recent billboard advertisement and says it is donating the advertising space to nonprofits after receiving backlash online.
The dating app launched a rebrand on April 30 that includes new features that seem counterintuitive to an app that initially wanted women to make the first move, including an option for men to send the opening message. The rebrand video shows a woman so tired of dating that she goes to a woman-only convent. When she leaves, she sees the app’s refresh. The campaign was created in-house and included out-of-home placements in 10+ countries.
But some of that rebrand did not go over so well. The billboards featured images of women with messages like “You know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer” and “Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun.”
Bumble told several news publications, including Forbes, that the celibacy ads were intended to be a “response to the frustrations of dating.”
Hookup culture isn’t selling itself – dating apps are doing a lot of the leg work.
There’s a reason their advertisements, even supposedly relationship-focused ones like Bumble, push SO hard for casual sex:
It makes relationships unstable and unlikely (1/5)🧵 pic.twitter.com/mFUfsLthLk
— Allie (@Cluffalo) May 10, 2024
On Monday night, Bumble posted a statement on Instagram saying it will donate to nonprofit organizations, including the National Domestic Hotline. It will offer the remainder of their billboard time for those organizations to display their own ads.
In an updated statement posted on Instagram Monday night, Bumble said it will donate to several organizations like the National Domestic Violence Hotline and offer the remainder of their billboard time so these groups can display their own ads. Many of the responses to the statement were also negative.
As consumers care more than ever about the values of the companies they buy from, what are media owners, agencies, and brands doing to ensure they don’t offend? Is this an example of a campaign where human filters might look at it at some stage in the process and say, “Hey, this is likely going to upset a lot of people?”
This incident also shows the power of out-of-home. Though it only makes up a small percentage of total ad spend, look at the impact it can have! Bumble has lost much brand sentiment because of the billboards they posted.
How invested should media owners be in the safety of the brands that post on their boards? This is nothing compared to what recently happened in Michigan.
But what place does a media owner have in determining if a message is good for their boards? If the audience doesn’t like the messages they see, they may, in turn, not like the billboard. There could be a risk of losing the inventory. If Bumble had worked with an agency, would the agency have steered them away from this messaging? How does the OOH industry protect its advertisers’ brand safety and its own brand safety?
What are your thoughts? Share in the comments below!