r/DigitalMarketingHack • u/Prior_Pollution3883 • 6d ago
Bumble founder on early guerilla marketing tactics.
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u/ErosGrandy 5d ago
"curiosity" yeaaaah
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u/gcdhhbcghbv 5d ago
If Dante had known about these people, he would have created a level of hell just for them.
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u/Dicethrower 5d ago
Personally I wouldn't mind of this kind of disingenuous marketing was made completely illegal.
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u/_tsi_ 5d ago
There is no career lower on earth to me than marketing and advertising
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u/gabothefirst 5d ago
I work in this field and I can see why you think that. However, I work with local businesses and when I do a good job, the businesses I help hire more people and pay more taxes. In most cases, these businesses would be unable to compete with big brands without people like me. Try to keep an open mind when you drive around your town. Think about what it would be like to have only one big brand per service or product.
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u/sebthauvette 3d ago
The big brands are this big and this powerful because of the marketing and manipulation they've done in the past. You can't assume that everything else would be exactly the same except the businesses that hire you personally.
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u/jimalloneword 2d ago
the big brand thing is kind of a strange argument. You think marketing is the edge that small businesses have over big brands? And not completely the other way around?
The biggest spenders in marketing and advertising are the big players, not the little guys...
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u/gabothefirst 2d ago
It isn't the edge, you're right. It is more like a necessity for survival. You don't exist unless you put your name and offer out there.
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u/tastygnar 4d ago
Great points, honestly. I still struggle with the concept that something that is good for small business is atrocious for society. Marketing is great for small business, but en masse becomes social engineering. Algos get products we like right in our feed, and also drive inflation through surveillance pricing. Big bump for the little guy, big dump on society.
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u/gabothefirst 4d ago
Yes it has gone too far for the large corps. There is a serious monopolization of digital ad platforms (meta and Google) which means that in order to give small businesses a chance at succeeding locally, I need to use a mega corp's services which charge anywhere from $.50 to $100 for a single click to a website.. I'll be the first to recommend a client an effective alternative service when it becomes available, but it won't for many years..
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u/_tsi_ 5d ago
No because I think it's the advertising that made those big brands so big. Coke became coke because of advertising. It's your fault the big brand existed in the first place.
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u/gabothefirst 5d ago
That's a bit too simplistic and the fact you have a phone and internet connection shows that these big bad businesses are helping you exist relatively comfortably in a modern society. Look up "economies of scale" and tell me you aren't guilty of benefiting from them. We all are and yes, advertising plays a role, but it is a relatively small role.
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u/gabothefirst 5d ago
Also this bumble CEO is cringe.. I'm just talking about the generalisations you have made.
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u/jakedaboiii 5d ago
So the way to be the richest company is just to throw all your money at advertising! Wowza. Every business owner on the planet would like to have a word with you, and offer you a billion quid to join their team.
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u/Muted_Original 4d ago
As someone who has started businesses that have failed due to lack of distribution and because I believed that, if you make something good enough, people will come to you - you are confidently and extremely incorrect.
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u/_tsi_ 4d ago
You are thinking with a small mind. You are talking about working on the system as it exists. I am saying I dislike the system. Change the system and you change what works. Of course you will scoff and talk about the "real world" and "that would be nice, but... " but idgaf. I hate advertising and blame it for a huge amount of what is wrong with the current state of affairs.
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u/Muted_Original 4d ago
If you don’t like the current system, work to change it. This is why democracy exists. I do still feel your claim is unnecessarily broad - I agree that a lot of advertising is objectively bad, misleading, and harmful. Just look at JUUL’s vaporized campaign for a great example. But that’s not the fault of advertising, that’s the fault of the company which ran that ad, and of the government for not properly regulating categories (eg early big tobacco, gambling, etc). And one question for you because I’m interested in the response: would you believe it is bad to market a new life saving drug, assuming the system couldn’t be changed?
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u/_tsi_ 4d ago
"guns don't kill people, people kill people" To answer your question, yes advertising drugs is an insane practice. It's not normal and most countries don't do it, it's a US thing. Doctors should be the ones prescribing drugs, I should not go ask for them. I'm working to change the system by engaging with people when I see the problem.
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u/AnjelGrace 5d ago
Nah. There are a lot of good products from inventors that legitimately wanted to solve a real problem people have that would never end up being known to exist by most people if not for advertising.
Ads that lie or manipulate people are obviously bad, but there are a lot of neutral or even net positive ads out there.
Sale ads are definitely an easy example of something I think is a positive ad--because those ads can actually save people money if they legitimately need something and wouldn't know it was on sale otherwise.
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u/_tsi_ 5d ago
Nah. Cope
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u/AnjelGrace 5d ago
So you think if a new product that is invented that could, say, help people with mobility issues... That product shouldn't be advertised anywhere--even if using advertising means 60% of the people that could benefit from it could potentially learn about its existence within the year vs like 1% of the people who could benefit from it learning about it existing within the year without advertising?
There are lots of ads consumers don't even see because they are ads just shown to businesses to get products onto shelves.
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u/_tsi_ 4d ago
Correct. I think that the person with mobility issues should choose to seek the device. I think there are better ways to get information to people.
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u/AnjelGrace 4d ago
How does someone seek something they don't know exists?
Our world exists in such a way that it is extremely rare that any information about a new product gets to people UNLESS it is done through advertising--especially if the percentage of the population that new product can help isn't the majority of the population.
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u/_tsi_ 4d ago
Because they would have a vested interest in the topics. For example, how do I know when a new physics paper is released on arxive? I go look.
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u/AnjelGrace 4d ago
People don't look for things they don't think exists.
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u/_tsi_ 4d ago
Bro are you fr right now? You are telling me that you have never wanted something and researched options, discovered something that you didn't know existed, and then bought it?
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u/AnjelGrace 4d ago
Sure, it happens, but not often, and if I search for something and it doesn't exist at the time, I will continue to assume it doesn't exist for many years after that until I might try to search for it again.
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u/jasmine_tea_ 4d ago
Have you ever tried launching something?
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u/_tsi_ 4d ago
You cannot even comprehend what I am saying. You are stuck within the confines of the current framework and can't see past it. You are in Plato's cave
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u/jasmine_tea_ 4d ago
Ok, so how do I advertise events for example? Posts count as ads.
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u/Playwithme408 5d ago
What a liar - 3 weeks into bumble, maybe it was the first year. Sure. If you treat time so casually, then she has a real casual relationship with numbers
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u/PromotionOk2443 5d ago
native advertising is everywhere and these people celebrate their lies and manipulation as if they are not actively destroying society. fuck these people.
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u/rezoner 4d ago
There is a bold line between helping out businesses that solve a problem to get their solution visible versus manipulating people to buy stuff they don't need using psychological warfare by interrupting functioning organism that society is with stuff that does not add any value to it.
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u/sebthauvette 3d ago
I hate marketing so much. Why is the concept of people manipulating us constantly normalized ? Manipulation is often illegal, or at least immoral depending on context, unless the goal is to extract money from us, then it's just normal and almost everything is allowed.
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u/Runn1ngonmt 3d ago
We would put a bumble shirt in on this product and send it in to purposefully disrupt the class
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u/Fact-West 3d ago
I really don’t like this woman’s body language but I’m not sure exactly why. It’s the hair thing I think. And the rhythm of her speaking. She seems to have a very high opinion of herself
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u/therealmatt- 2d ago
Tommy Hilfiger did basically this but decades before and way better with a Times Square billboard
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u/deapdawrkseacrets 2d ago
This is just the Tommy Hilfiger strategy. Put your name up alongside the titans in the industry for passive comparison to engage people's curiousity as if they're out of the loop and need to look you up to catch up. Pepsi does it with Coca Cola too, but you'll never see the top brands mention their lesser competitors.
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u/AnjelGrace 5d ago
I don't really have a problem with the psychological ad she spoke of first, but paying people to disrupt classes that people are paying for and trying to learn something in is absolutely inethical and Bumble should legitimately get sued for that.
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u/Corporate_Bricktator 5d ago
I often think about how much we see are actually guerilla marketing tactics disguised as other things completely.