This week, we bring you a campaign about the big, swinging elephants in the boardroom, a creative campaign that pulls on the heart strings, how artificial intelligence aims to take the sting out of dating, and a ‘Bumble fumble’ that’s ruffled more than a few feathers.
Too many dicks
Cosmetic giant e.l.f. is campaigning against gender disparity in US business. There’s just too many Dicks. Literally.
e.l.f.’s research shows that in the boardrooms of the top four thousand companies in the US there are 566 men called Dick, Richard, or Rick. That compares with only 283 Hispanic women at that level. There’s nearly as many Dicks as there are Asian women (774), and Black women account for only 806 seats at the table.
We’ve got nothing against Dicks. Some of them are lovely, and very good at what they do. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a few more Fannies in the room?
Crayola-me creative
To celebrate UN World Creativity and Innovation Day, Crayola is debuting a short film series called Stay Creative celebrating the importance of creativity and encouraging parents to support it in their children’s lives.
Their campaign digs into their archives, revisiting the art submitted to Crayola by three adults when they were kids, over forty years ago. They revisit their childhood artwork and reflect on how creativity influenced their lives and how they encourage it in their own children.
You don’t need to tell us about the importance of creativity, so more initiatives like this please.
Have our AIs met before?
Dating app Bumble has this week teased a personalised ‘AI dating concierge’ in a bid to nip timewasters in the bud and combat dating fatigue.
The idea is simple, you feed your dating concierge with information about yourself, your likes and dislikes, and your dating concierge will ‘date’ hundreds of other dating concierges to find you the best match.
It’s an fascinating use of AI that might take some of the sting out of dating. Whether it really works or not (does it also take the dating out of dating?) it should generate great user stories and tons of positive coverage, as long as Bumble doesn’t fumble.
Bumble Fumbles
Dating app Bumble has fumbled its way into a marketing disaster. With a lot of hype built up for its rebrand, Bumble wiped their socials clean and replaced their posts with memes of Renaissance-style women looking like they’re over everyone’s BS.
Bumble has always presented itself as an ally—an app designed for women to take charge of their dating lives. Their new campaign was supposed to herald a new era, but instead sparked quite a bit of backlash.
The campaign’s slogans, “You know full well a vow of celibacy is not the answer”, and “Thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun”, generating immediate backlash on social media, with the brand accused of being tone deaf, perpetuating patriarchal tropes, and not showing enough respect for asexual and celibate lifestyle choices.
Bumble responded by immediately pulling the campaign and issuing an apology.
It’s generally considered bad to run a campaign that offends a huge chunk of your target market. We can’t help but wonder what Bumble’s AI dating concierges think of it.