How Bumble grows its buzz

Before the star-studded endorsements, a Super Bowl ad and hundreds of Instagram photos featuring yellow merch, Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd sent her co-workers a photo of two pink tennis balls.

Wolfe Herd pasted Bumble stickers on the balls for the dating app maker’s early marketing campaign that featured the slogan: “The Ball is in Her Court.”

Alex Williamson, now the company’s chief brand officer, remembered Wolfe Herd telling the group: “Wouldn’t it be cool if one day we made this company big enough that Serena Williams would partner with us?”

Now, more than four years later, that slogan and goal has become a reality for Austin-based Bumble, which has shifted from dating to also include networking and friend-finding on its app. In January, the company launched a year-long partnership with Williams through its #InHerCourt campaign, which included a 30-second Super Bowl ad.

After launching as a startup in a saturated dating app industry less than five years ago, marketing experts say that Bumble has used numerous strategies to cultivate a brand that now aims to represent women empowerment — a message that can help secure a more profitable future for the company.

Since its founding in 2014, Bumble has grown from being a women-focused dating app to a company that markets itself as an empowering tool for women to make friends, make business contacts and to beat harassment on the internet. The app has more than 50 million users.

That shift in messaging worked, said Angeline Close Scheinbaum, associate director of research at the University of Texas' Center for Sports Communication and Media.

“I think it shows that this brand is really on the rise,” Close Scheinbaum said of the partnership with Williams.

Growing pains

Bumble followed in the footsteps of other e-dating companies like Tinder, which came onto the scene in 2012 and quickly became one of the most popular dating apps on the market.

The dual extends beyond friendly competition, though. Match Group, which owns Tinder and has previously tried to buy Bumble, sued the company in March 2018, claiming patent infringement and misuse of intellectual property.

Shortly after, Bumble responded with a lawsuit claiming that Match Group stole trade secrets and more. The company sought $400 million in damages but later asked the court to drop the suit.

Although it's hard to miss news about the company's legal feuds, Close Scheinbaum said it's unlikely that the headlines will have a negative impact on the company.

"The company is doing a good job standing up for itself and its values — especially for women — by speaking out via advertising, and this may be appreciated by consumers who may be aware of what they are dealing with legally with its competitor," she said.

Close Scheinbaum, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on the e-dating market in 2006, said Bumble's bigger challenge will be fighting to stay on top in a more mature e-dating market.

Tinder does not release information on its total number of users, but says that more than 30 billion "matches" have been made on the app.

Bumble's "unique selling proposition" — letting women make the first move — continues to be an original message in an otherwise saturated e-dating market, Close Scheinbaum said. However, the company could face challenges as the number of dating apps grow.

"Unfortunately, sometimes success comes with growing pains and hardships, such as competitors coming for market share and ideas that were once original are no longer a (unique selling proposition)," Close Scheinbaum said.

More than a dating app

The company has gone beyond its app to market its women-focused message, helping Texas state Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-Dallas, write a bill that would make it a crime to send a lewd photo without the consent of the recipient. The bill includes content sent via text message, social media or online dating apps.

The measure aligns with Bumble’s mission of combating so-called cyberflashing on platforms across the internet. Bumble already bans shirtless selfies, misogynistic language, nudity, guns and drugs in photos on its app.

The Texas House approved the bill this week. The state Senate has not yet taken up the measure.

READ MORE: Founder of Austin’s Bumble testifies in favor of digital sexual harassment bill

Bumble has been successful at marketing its message across multiple platforms, also known as integrated brand promotion, said Close Scheinbaum.

That was on display in September, when Bumble took out a full-page ad in the New York Times that read: “Believe Women” one day after Christine Blasey Ford testified in front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, alleging that then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her at a house party in the 1980s.

Wolfe Herd shared a photo of the front page on Twitter and announced that the company would donate $25,000 to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.

We believe you. And we want to help.@Bumble is making a $25K donation to@RAINN today in honor of survivors of sexual violence.#BelieveWomen#BelieveSurvivorspic.twitter.com/Z1fYljghRQ

— Whitney Wolfe Herd (@WhitWolfeHerd)September 28, 2018

This month, the company made an even bigger leap into print, launching its own lifestyle magazine.

The first edition of Bumble Mag features 100 pages of interviews, advice, product guides and more.

And last year, Bumble and the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers announced a multi-year partnership that included an "empowerment badge" featured on the front of team uniforms. Bumble will pay roughly $20 million over three years, a person familiar with the deal told Bloomberg.

“This is a brand that cares about women, that speaks to women and that’s really important in their integrated brand promotion,” said Close Scheinbaum.

A Super Bowl ad

That attention to a broader message of female-empowerment, experts say, helped grow the brand to a point where it could catch the attention of a tennis superstar like Williams.

With help from Nashville-based marketing agency FlyteVu, Williams and the Bumble team decided on Thanksgiving that they’d kick off their year-long campaign with a 30-second Super Bowl ad.

“It really came down to how are we going to launch this partnership in a big way,” said Laura Hutfless, a founding partner at FlyteVu.

But that left the group with less than two months to prepare.

“I think the beauty of working with a brand like Bumble is they can work quickly” because their team is small and mighty, Hutfless said. “And we’ve worked together for so many years.”

Bumble’s ability to snag a world-famous athlete like Williams, a singer like Meghan Trainor or an actress like Kate Hudson shows that it’s a well-funded company, said Debra Zahay-Blatz, a professor of marketing at St. Edward’s University.

“It says that they have enough money to pay a celebrity,” Zahay-Blatz said. “That’s interesting to me because most startups can’t.”

The company does not disclose financial details of celebrity partnerships, but a spokesperson for Bumble said that many high-profile women who have supported the company "have done so out of authentic love of the brand."

However, it’s clear that the company is gaining ground financially. In September, Wolfe Herd told CNBC that the company’s growth is outpacing expectations and an initial public offering of stock could help fuel its global expansion.

“We are at our annual run rate of $200 million for 2018, and we’re only in year three,” Wolfe Herd said in the interview. “We’ve been a profitable business since year two.”

The company generates revenue using a subscription model that offers some free features and charges for additional services.

In a sea of dating apps, Bumble stands out as one of the few companies that frequently uses celebrity endorsements to promote its brand, according to Zahay-Blatz.

“Not a lot of dating apps and social media sites do that,” Zahay-Blatz said. “You don't really see a particular app taking such a strong position in terms of celebrity endorsements.”

Dating app Tinder has taken some steps to involve celebrities in its promotion. In November, Jonathan Van Ness and Antoni Porowski from Netflix’s “Queer Eye” TV series sat down for Tinder’s video series on dating.

Hutfless, who helps Bumble pull together celebrity partnerships at FlyteVu, said Bumble remains successful at leveraging talent because the brand has a mission that’s clear to consumers.

“For a brand to remain relevant, you have to be entrenched in the pop culture conversation, which Bumble has done so well,” Hutfless said. “What talent does is just amplify that message.”