The Birth and Growth Trajectory of Bumble

Introduction

With artificial intelligence and tremendous data at the disposal of companies, brands are coming up with new and revolutionary ideas. Applications that help people connect with different individuals and find the love of their lives are not uncommon. There are many programs that will read your profile, learn your taste and preferences, and then recommend you as a suitable match. Bumble, the dating application, is in style today. When Bumble entered the market, there were already major competitors in the dating application field, so it is crucial for us to understand what Bumble as a brand did right to create its standing in the market.

In this article, we will be diving deep into the birth and growth trajectory of the Bumble brand and what competitive advantage Bumble has in the market.

The Birth of the Bumble Brand

Image − Logo of Bumble

Bumble is a location-based social media dating app., founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd and Andrey Andreev in December 2014 in Austin, Texas. Whitney Wolfe Herd is the co-founder, CEO, and former employee of Bumble. It is a feminist dating site, and one of the core points of Bumble is that in heterosexual matches, women have to text first, and that too within a stipulated time of 24 hours.

Bumble also provides the user with a free version and the basic version of the application, which helps the application gain revenue. With Bumble Premium, users can get more right swipes because of the spotlight feature, undo swipes if they swiped someone left by mistake, check their beeline (people who have liked the user's profile), use travel mode to find people from different cities, extend the messaging period, and others.

Bumble as an application is a success because it understands how to treat customers differently. For example, there is a new trend in dating nowadays called "ghosting", so if the woman in heterosexual matches is not texting the man, then the guy will automatically be removed from the conversation pipeline. People generally forget to reply or text the other person, so Bumble came up with the "nudge option, and others.

The major competitors of Bumble are Tinder, Aisle, Happan, Ok Cupid, and others.

The Growth Trajectory of Bumble Brand

Company Amalgamations To Serve The Users Better

Bumble believes that customer-centric innovation is the key to survival in today’s business environment. Hence, Bumble collaborated with many brands to advertise the brands and also enhance the user experience.

In 2016, Bumble joined hands with Spotify, and through this partnership, users were able to connect their Spotify account with their Bumble account and display their music interests. Another amalgamation Bumble has done with Instagram is linking up the accounts so that customers can directly jump to the user's account and gather more information. Bumble also started finding friends in the Bumble network by adding another section because Bumble understood that many individuals find it difficult to make friends in real life and are in dire need of the same.

Bumble also launched Bumble Bizz, a business networking application. Bumble Bizz is a career networking application just like Linkedin with one big differentiation, and that is that in Bumble Bizz as well, Bumble has a woman-first interface.

Bumble also partnered with the Anti-Defamation Regulatory Commission as a measure to remove all the abusive profiles from Bumble and protect and enhance the customer experience.

Differentiating Features Itself Apart

As Bumble was founded by the ex-employees of Tinder, Bumble has learned what worked and what did not in the dating space. The CEO as well as the other team members decided to build an application that would solve all the problems of Tinder, the most common and widespread dating application. Tinder initially was not available on iOS devices, hence Bumble made its user interface iOS-friendly.

Furthermore, Tinder was a widely used application that women had no power over or hold over, and hence Bumble came up with the feature of a women-first interface. In this setting, in the case of heterosexual matches, women have to make the first move, and that too within 24 hours, while in the case of homosexual matches, anyone can make the first move. This ensured that women had more power and control. Along with the partnership with the Anti-Defamation Regulatory Commission to remove hate speech, it makes it more user-friendly.

Social Media Marketing

Bumble understood that most of its users need to be tech-savvy and are generally social media-friendly, and hence Bumble invested a lot of time and energy in social media marketing campaigns. Bumble has a strong hold on applications like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and others. Bumble releases video content in which it brings in influencers to talk about the various aspects of dating and what their take on it is.

Along with this, Bumble shares a lot of fun memes on its website related to dating. Bumble also widely uses hashtags for every marketing campaign and to grab attention.

Some of the hashtags are - Dating just got equal, Dating these days, and How we equal others.

Influencer Marketing

Bumble invests in influencer marketing in which famous influencers are invited to join Bumble and then create videos about their experiences there. The videos are generally light-hearted or have the deep, meaningful conversation required and gather a lot of traction for the company.

Social Welfare or Cause Marketing

Bumble believes in cause marketing and going to work with the community. During the lockdown period of the pandemic, Bumble was making huge profits, and Bumble invested a part of them in lifting 13 other small businesses that were excellent but were facing a tough time because of all the uncertainty around them.

Traditional Media Channels

Bumble also invests in advertising the brand and creating awareness about its presence through sponsorship of different music, art, and dance events. Bumble sponsors events that will draw a large number of young people. Bumble also hired Priyanka Chopra as the brand ambassador to attract and gain a larger Indian audience.

Conclusion

As of today, Bumble is present in more than 150 countries and has more than 50 million monthly users. Bumble has more than 600 employees currently, and all are devoted to enhancing the dating experience of the users as well as providing them with a safe dating experience.

Bumble, as an application, is determined to solve the user's problems, enhance their experience, and come up with marketing campaigns that are going to create an impact in the consumer's mind. Bumble is positioned as a safe dating site, and with its new innovation, there is a huge ladder that Bumble will climb in the business world.