Aubrey Saturno

Professor A. Granillo

English 103

28 May 2019

HITS and MISSES of Bumble’s Advert with Serena Williams 

 
Intro: 
Advertising has been around for centuries and is used to 
promote people, products, or ideas. If you just stop and take a 
look around you, you would notice that there are advertisements 
everywhere.  
Just scroll through your Instagram feed, you’ll probably see an 
add for Burts Bees, … or Target….or Ben and Jerry’s 
How about go on Youtube and you sure will be greeted by an 
advertisement about…. Geico? Hmmm… maybe St. Ives too 
Of course, there’s also Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and any 
form of social media you could think of,  
 
WAIT no scratch that. In EVERY FORM OF MEDIA,  
[add pictures of a TV, radio, magazine, social media, etc] 
you will most likely see or hear an advertisement. 
 
Anyways, it’s pretty evident that we’re bombarded by 
advertisements and there’s no getting away from them BUT we 
should all know their characteristics so that we know how they 
influence us!!! 
 
So today we’re gonna be looking at Bumble’s Advertisement 
Featuring Serena Williams.  
 
Now, this advertisement is packed with lots of things but we’re 
specifically going to be focusing on the overpowering use of the 
rhetorical appeal, ethos, used in it and the biggest underlying 
message it is saying... 
 
Just watch the advertisement video in its entirety and you’ll 
pretty much catch on to its message: Woman Power! And of course 
through the Bumble app. 
 
Through the Feminist Criticism, Bumble’s advertisement with 
Serena Williams pretty much addresses patriarchal ideologies, 
which includes traditional gender roles set for women and 
proceeds to break those ideologies down through using Serena 
Williams as its leading image to deliver the message that women 
should take an initiative towards the different aspects of their 
lives. BUT Williams being the driving force of this advert kind 
of poses a fallacy  
But we’ll get more to that later 
 
[Meanwhile, Bumble’s advertisement should be playing in the 
background muted] 
 
Body:  
 
Well first, we’re starting off with what Bumble is ultimately 
trying to sell: its services. And in the video, it is obvious 
that they’re promoting the three components of their app which 
are Bumble Date, Bumble Bizz, and Bumble Bff.  
 
[proceed to show an image of the three modes/components] 
 
Just going through the Bumble website, it already advertises how 
this app functions. AND do not be surprised because, in all 
three modes, ONLY the woman is allowed to initiate a 
conversation first! (which is hinted in the advertisement too) 
 
[insert clip of “in life, in work, in love”] 
 
But this poses a problem for Bumble Date because the rule would 
only work if the person that that woman is trying to reach out 
to first is a male 
 
Sooooo, it’s coming off as if the main audience for the Bumble 
Date is solely [HETEROSEXUAL] women and [HETEROSEXUAL] men too  
**Coughs** 
 
Uhhhh. Where’s the diversity???? 
 
Well, upon further research which took a WHOPPING 5 minutes…  
I FOUND OUT that Bumble Date also caters to homosexual pairings 
in which the “women initiate first” rule doesn’t apply.  
[Show screenshot of description]  
Funny how the advertisement does not include this. 
But Nonetheless, 
[audience cheer sounds] 
 
Hmm… What about Bumble Bff and Bumble Bizz? 
 
Well, if we watch the advertisement, the overpowering message of 
taking “initiative” mostly applies to only Bumble Date and 
Bumble Bizz. 
 
If you see when Bumble Bff was shown, it shows a match of two 
women so there’s no initiation of “women first” when the two 
parties are both women.  
 
Well, at least the message still completes about ⅔ of its 
purpose. 
 
 
2nd Part: 
 
Oof Now enough about the app, we came here to talk about the 
advertisement! 
 
The advertisement is narrated entirely by none other than Mrs. 
Serena Williams. She starts off by talking about her struggles 
as a woman in this world, who is told by the world to wait. 
 
[insert video clip] 
 
Talking about what the “world” tells women, Serena is pertaining 
to the patriarchal ideologies that apply gender roles that 
suppress women. 
 
This ​critical theory today​ book by Lois Tyson, through Feminist 
Criticism, 
[show image of the book] 
defines patriarchy as “sexist, which means that it promotes the 
belief that women are innately inferior to men” (Tyson 81). 
Tyson mentions that traditional gender roles “cast women as 
emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing, and submissive” (Tyson 
81). 
 
So applying the Feminist Criticism to what Serena Williams said 
that about the whole world telling women to wait,  
 
She pretty much gives an example of how the patriarchal world 
sees women: that they shouldn’t do anything first. That they 
should wait until “they’re invited in”. 
 
If you also look at the clip, you can see that the tennis court 
in which the little kid is in, is filled with men. Specifically 
white men.  
So with the combination of Serena’s first words and the setting 
of where the little girl is in, it emulates certain 
circumstances in the real world that women face. 
 
By doing so, the advertisement is making the primary audience, 
women, and more specifically young girls, realize that they will 
be in situations in which some men and other women might tell 
what they should do. 
And these “advice” that they receive from others can have a 
strong patriarchal influence, which limits their mindsets when 
it comes to things that they want to try. 
 
The advertisement makes the audience realize that despite these 
situations that they might find themselves in, they should not 
let it stop them from doing what they want to do.  
 
And Serena uses her experiences as proof of how breaking 
traditional gender roles of women will build them up more rather 
than break them. 
 
[Insert clip of Serena’s achievements] 
 
In an interview with CBS This Morning, Serena mentions how her 
collaboration with Bumble is a conversation starter towards the 
new generation of women. 
  
[Insert clip of Serena in CBS This Morning]. 
 
It is pretty much to tell the new generation that continue to 
fight for the things that are kept from them because they 
deserve it too. 
 
3rd Part: 
 
Serena Williams being the leading image of this video 
establishes ETHOS. 
 
Like basically her being in the video pretty much builds a lot 
of credibility because  
1. She’s a successful tennis player 
2. She’s a POC 
3. She’s a woman 
 
She is considered one of the Leading feminists and a 
well-rounded female athlete, so she has gained ample respect and 
idolization from other women and young girls. 
 
[use clip of young girls going to Serena] 
 
So through that, she is portrayed as some type of authority when 
Bumble uses her popularity to carry out the message and it 
appeals to what the audience would deem credible because of her 
background. 
 
BUT there might be a slight fallacy in Serena Williams being 
used for this advertisement. 
 
It is the fallacy of ​an appeal to authority​, which uses an 
authority to support a claim. 
 
Serena Williams being the driving force of the advert 
establishes a strong ethical appeal as people already respect 
her. It inly shows that Bumble used Williams to star in this 
particular video because… well… she’s credible. They move the 
audience to use their app like how Williams is using them.  
 
[show the last few sec of advert]