Barbie and Ken are on Bumble

The latest partner in the long list of promotional collaborations for the upcoming Barbie movie is dating app Bumble. 

But rather than wash the app in Barbie’s signature hot-pink hue, Barbies and Kens featured in the upcoming film will be leaving Barbie Land and joining the app to bolster Bumble users’ egos.

The partnership serves to promote Bumble’s message-before-match feature, Compliments, which allows users to send words of encouragement to each other without matching first. The film’s suite of Barbies and Kens will use Compliments to offer kind words and love-life advice to swiping users.

The Compliments feature was first introduced in late 2022. Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said in a press release that it “lead[s] to a higher likelihood of matching and quality chats among our users.”

“Teaming up with Bumble for this experience has been a fun and creative way to showcase all of the film’s Barbies’ and Kens’ personalities as they venture into the real world via the app, bringing their innate positivity with them,” said Cameron Curtis, EVP of global digital marketing at Warner Bros. Pictures, in a statement. 

The partnership is a sensible one for a self-described “women-first” dating app where women users are given more power — after all, the Barbie film tag headline is, “She’s everything. He’s just Ken.”

And, as the Barbie world portrayed in the movie is one of unmatched positivity -- that is, until existential crises set in -- giving compliments is second-nature to these characters.