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Airbnb
Airbnb’s Journey to Building Trust Through the ‘Never a Stranger’ Campaign
Portfolio Project Meherunissa Tariq
November 28, 2016
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Airbnb is an online home-sharing marketplace where guests and hosts can rent and list
properties. In 2014, it was found that despite having the most number of properties listed Airbnb
was not as well-known as its competitors like VRBO, HomeAway or Expedia in the U.S. This
unfamiliarity with the brand led to assumptions and concerns. Assumptions like it was a couch-
surfing platform and concerns about safety and security of living with a stranger. To foster a
sense of familiarity and trust amongst its audience, Airbnb launched a campaign to directly
address the uncomfortable truth about trusting strangers, by showing how one could benefit from
meeting different and new people. According to Jonathan Mildenhall, the Chief Marketing
Officer of Airbnb, the campaign had a “sensational” impact on “brand awareness, site traffic and
business” (Effie Case study, 2016). The campaign ran in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, but this
paper focuses on the impact of the campaign in the United States.
BACKGROUND
Airbnb lies within the ‘sharing economy’ business category. It serves as a platform for two
individuals to connect and make a mutually beneficial exchange powered by technology, for
which it charges a transaction fee. It charges a 3% fee to users who list their properties and
anywhere between 6%-12% to guests who reserve properties (WARC, Airbnb Inc, Travel). When
Airbnb was first launched in 2007, out of the homes of its co-founders Brian Chesky and Joe
Gebbia, it was called ‘Airbed and Breakfast.’ (Salter, “Airbnb: The story behind the $1.3bn
room-letting website”). Headquartered in San Francisco, it has over 60,000,000 guests, operates
in 34,000 cities and has over 2,000,000 listings worldwide (Airbnb Website).
Airbnb’s Story
2007 - Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were friends living together in San Francisco, unable to pay
their rent as they were unemployed. To solve this issue, they inflated three air mattresses, created
a website and invited people to stay at their home during a local design conference (Salter,
“Airbnb: The story behind the $1.3bn room-letting website”).
2008 - Chesky and Gebbia partnered with Nathan Blecharczyk a Computer Science graduate to
recreate their website. Blecharczyk became the Chief Technology Officer and launched their
new website (Salter, “Airbnb: The story behind the $1.3bn room-letting website”).
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2009 – Airbnb raised $20,000/- through their first round of funding by Paul Graham’s Y
Combinator, a firm that invests in newfound tech companies. By the end of the year, it raised
$600,000/- from venture capitalists (Thomson, “Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on Building a
Company and Starting a 'Sharing' Revolution”).
2010-2011 – It raised $7.2 million followed by another $112 million in funding by venture
capitalists and independent investors like Ashton Kutcher (Salter, “Airbnb: The story behind the
$1.3bn room-letting website”).
2014 - Airbnb was valued at $10 billion in 2014. The team brought Jonathan Mildenhall on
board as the Chief Marketing Officer, and signed TBWA/Chiat/Day/LA as their creative agency,
as well as Starcom MediaVest as their media agency. Following which, it rebranded by
introducing the Bélo logo .
Airbnb’s Logo - Bélo
2016 - In August 2016, Airbnb raised $850 million in funding and is valued at $30 billion
(Salter, “Airbnb: The story behind the $1.3bn room-letting website”).
Airbnb’s Ladder to Success
During Airbnb’s 7th year, it had 800,000 users worldwide, which meant that it had the most
number of properties amongst any of the hotel chains without owning a single property (Helm,
“Airbnb Is Inc.'s 2014 Company of the Year”). At the Skift Global Forum in 2016 Chip Conley,
Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality & Strategy, explained three strategies that helped Airbnb
maintain its position (McMillin, “Reasons Why Airbnb is Achieving So Much Success”):
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1. Setting standards of hospitality - “Airbnb isn’t an anything-goes platform.” It has set
criteria based on which it accepts or declines host requests. According to Conley, Airbnb
terminates “tens of thousands of hosts off the platform each month who don’t satisfy the
need to deliver excellent and dependable hospitality.”
2. It ensures transparency by verifying listings to make sure it accurately depicts what the
guests are getting. “Disappointment equals expectation minus reality,” according to
Conley.
3. It views one of its core responsibilities as teaching “its hosts how to deliver a one-of-a-
kind experience.” This has led to 50% higher Airbnb satisfaction rates as compared to
hotels.
According to multiple members of Airbnb’s senior management, like James McClure the
General Manager of their U.K. and Ireland branches, the focus is on reaching the goal of being
the first “community-driven superbrand.” In McClure’s words, “Airbnb is really all about the
customers, the hosts, the guests, even the cities and countries we operate in. We have a lot of
stories from our community. After all, the product is effectively the hosts you meet” (Pickup,
“Staying personal key to Airbnb’s success”).
Renewed Branding
In 2014, Airbnb rebranded itself with a new visual design, updated brand positioning and revised
mission statement. The new mission is “creating a world where 7 billion people can belong
anywhere” (Chesky, “Belong Anywhere”) with a focus on creating cultural experiences for
travelers through the eyes of a local. The Bélo logo symbolizes the brand positioning of ‘Belong
Anywhere’ according to an official Airbnb blog post by (Chesky, “the Bélo: the universal
symbol of belonging”). Following Airbnb’s rebranding efforts, campaigns have been initiated to
reinforce the new mission and positioning. As part of this effort, the ‘Never a Stranger’
campaign was launched in April, 2015.
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COMMUNICATIONS PROBLEM
Airbnb Versus Competition Experience Survey
By the end of 2014, Airbnb found that they had two main challenges. First, it was relatively
unknown and second, it was susceptible to a lot of misperceptions both of which led audiences to
be wary of the platform. In a study done by Hall & Partners called ‘US Benchmark Brand
Tracker Results,’ it was found that “fewer than 1 in 5 travelers” in the U.S. knew about Airbnb
as compared to “54% competitive average” (Effie Case study, 2016). In another study done on
‘Sharing Economy’ by Price Waterhouse Coopers in 2014, it was found that “over half were
intrigued but had major concerns about the sharing economy. Only 6% had used an Airbnb-like
company, while 70% wouldn’t try it until recommended by someone I trust” (Price Waterhouse
Coopers, “Sharing Economy”).
As humans we have basic animal instincts that lead us to behave in certain ways. One of which is
our instinct to distrust something or someone foreign to us, which is nurtured by years of
culturally prevalent notions like ‘stranger danger’. Breaking the barrier to getting people to open
up their homes and living with unknown people isn’t easy. Airbnb’s co-founder Gebbia revealed
in his TED talk that the secret behind Airbnb’s success was their design approach, which focused
on gaining trust to attract users. He further explained that to increase trust in their platform, they
began sharing more information, enlisting reviews by users and taking professional photographs.
Airbnb started seeing a growth in revenue from $200/- to $400/- per week. Michael Munger, an
economics professor at Duke University and an expert on the sharing economy, sums up
Airbnb’s qualities that led to its success by saying, “improvements and refinements helped
Airbnb do something previous sharing companies hadn't managed--to acquire an aura of style,
respectability, safety, and trustworthiness. The photos in particular made the locations seem
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prestigious, compared to bad, blurry photos on other sites. That meant people were slightly more
likely to go with Airbnb. It's these tiny initial differences that lead to cascades" (Helm, “Airbnb
Is Inc.'s 2014 Company of the Year”).
Adding to an already wary attitude of people, were stories floating around bringing to light
sexual harassment, robbery and racism by Airbnb users (Lieber, “Airbnb Horror Story Points to
Need for Precautions”). Racism especially has become a deterrent for guests who can’t trust the
system (Airbnb) to be treated equally. According to a study done by Harvard Business school in
2016, “African-American-sounding names were 16% less likely to be given a room than
travelers with white-sounding names.” This has spurred a national conversations through
#AirbnbWhileBlack which is used to share stories about discrimination based on color (Badger,
“Airbnb announces 'comprehensive review' after complaints of bias”).
SITUATION ANALYSIS
Environment
U.S. Hotel Industry Revenue from 2001-2015 (in billion USD)
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The worldwide economic impact of the travel and tourism industry is around 6.5 trillion U.S.
Dollars. There was a 50% increase in the number of international tourists in 2012 with people
from China, Germany and the United States being the biggest spenders. In the U.S., the global
hotel industry contributes approximately $400 to $500 billion, being the third largest contributor
to the economy (Statista, “Statistics and Market Data on Travel, Tourism & Hospitality”).
Hotel Market Sentiment in the U.S. Compared to Global Average from 2009 - 2015
The positive perception towards the hotel industry in the U.S (not including Airbnb) compared to
the global average shows a dip in 2015. In February 2016, domestic leisure travel grew at a
steady pace while business travel has been on a decline and is expected fall further (U.S Travel
Association, Travel Trends Feb 2016).
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U.S. Vacation Rental Revenue Growth Projections from 2014-2020 in million USD
On the other hand, vacation rental services defined as private holiday homes or rooms rented out
online for short-term use like Airbnb, VRBO, HomeAway, and Couchsurfing, would see a
growth in revenue from $6,491 million in 2014 to a projected growth of $8,079 million in 2015
and growth in number of users from 11.6 million in 2014 to 12.7 million in 2016 (Statista,
“Vacation Rentals”).
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Number of Vacation Rental Users Projected in the U.S between 2014 – 2020 (in millions)
Also, consumer technology and the sharing economy industry has affected the purchasing
behavior of current consumer market trends. Today, an online review is a highly trustworthy
source for making purchasing decisions. Whether it is to order food, cab service or renting a
room, consumers rely on reviews of other users. In the Price Waterhouse Cooper research
conducted in the U.S., it was found that 44% consumers knew about sharing economy. Amongst
these 44%, 86% agree it’s more affordable, 83% agree it’s more efficient and 89% agree it is
based on mutual trust amongst users. 72% of the consumers have concerns regarding consistent
experience and 69% say they will not use a service unless recommended by someone they trust
(Price Waterhouse Copper, “Sharing Economy”).
Airbnb Audience
The core target audience for Airbnb are tech savvy young travelers who are willing to trust the
sharing economy based ecosystem. In the PWC research mentioned above, it was also found that
“18 to 24 year olds, households with an income between $50K to $75K and those with kids in
the house under the age of 18 years are most excited about the sharing economy once they’ve
tried it.” According to a Nielsen survey, “Millennials have become the largest living
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demographic segment, accounting to 75.4 million in the U.S.” They also believe that technology
is the most defining characteristic of their generation as compared to other factors like music,
pop-culture consumption, and liberal mindset. Apart from this, more than 74% feel that
technology makes their lives easier (Nielsen, “Millennials: Technology = Social Connection”).
Airbnb broadly segments their current audience into two categories they term as guests and
hosts. The guests are ones who seek to find a place to stay and the hosts are those who list their
space on the website. Diving deeper into their audiences, we can define guests as ‘travel
culturists’ who visit a place not only to see it but seek cultural experience through the eyes of a
local. And, the hosts as ‘home natives’ who are inclined to opening their homes to visitors and
play the role of a friendly guide to them.
Competition/Barriers/Obstacles
Ever since Airbnb began, the hotel industry has been keeping an eye open because of Airbnb’s
increasing popularity amongst young travelers (Glusac, “Hotels Vs. Airbnb: Let the Battle
Begin”). In 2012, a Boston University study conducted in Austin showed that for every 10%
increase in new room and home share listings the hotel room revenue drops .35% (Meehan,
“Keeping Watch on the Airbn Competition”). In June 2015, Airbnb was priced at $25.5billion
above hotel giant Marriott’s $20.90bn.
In a survey done by Topdeck Travel in 2016, on latest travel trends, 76% say that a friends’
recommendation is great influence in picking destinations and so is social media as compared to
a travel agent. The study further reveals that 86% travel for cultural experience and 69% to try
local cuisine as compared to partying and shopping (Lane, “Are Millennial Travel Trends
Shifting in 2016?”).
Bjorn Hanson, a clinical professor of the Jonathan M. Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism
at New York University said, “there are things that are happening at traditional lodging
companies that are accelerating related to Airbnb, and that is less uniformity. Ten years ago at a
hotel in Honolulu and in New York, the art and decoration might be identical. We’ve seen brands
recognize guests want a more genuine experience and a place that’s more reflective of local
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culture.” And this is reinforced by Tina Edmundson, global brand officer of luxury and lifestyle
brands at Marriott International “The way this consumer likes to travel is not to spend time in the
guest room but to have access to communal spaces.” Keeping this in mind, Moxy Hotels was
launched. The rooms are compact and can be entered into with a smartphone app and the lobby
has a bar, grab and go food and many charging points.
Similarly, Hyatt Hotels and Resorts’ are trying new ways to indulge travelers by making local
food and culture accessible to people staying at their new brand Hyatt Centric. It allows guests to
order from local restaurants through GrubHub and offer an express menu with delivery within 20
minutes. Apart from this, it encourages employees to be casual while talking to guests and offer
information about the destination. Understanding these trends culturally, where young travelers
are more inclined to localized experiences, hotels are now changing their designs and offering to
meet these expectations to compete with Airbnb (Glusac, “Hotels vs. Airbnb: Let the Battle
Begin).
Airbnb also caters to business travelers and as recently as November, 17th 2016, has added new
features to their platform called Trips, Experience and Places in an effort to provide alternate
ways to travel. The new products provide travelers with an option to choose from different
activities to do and/or pick places to visit, eat and drink based on recommendations by locals. So
from only being a home-sharing rental service, Airbnb is expanding its product offering and
competing with the more traditional travel and tourism industry (Airbnb, Facebook Live
Broadcast of Launch).
AIRBNB’S ‘NEVER A STRANGER’ CAMPAIGN
Airbnb #OneLessStranger Social Media Campaign
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On January, 1st 2015, Airbnb hosts woke up to $10 credits in their accounts, a gift from its CEO
Chesky, to encourage them to do a good deed (Shankman, “Airbnb’s New Campaign Gives
Hosts $10 to be Brand Evangelists”). Chesky, sent a video invitation along with the credit to
encourage the host community to perform random acts of kindness. This was the beginning of
the launch of #OneLessStranger on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to help meet their
company’s mission “to create a world where all 7 Billion people can Belong Anywhere” (Airbnb
Marketing,“Creating #OneLessStranger:Stories of Belonging”). It was accompanied with a
website, www.airbnb.com/one-less-stranger (discontinued) where people could post their
random acts of kindness. The goal was to encourage people to perform acts of kindness towards
each other and kindle a spirit of kindness that would lower their skepticism towards strangers.
“To further integrate digitally, we utilized the map on airbnb.com/map to showcase moments of
#OneLessStranger around the world”. The campaign resulted in people spending 6.03 minutes
more than what they usually would to engage with user generated content, and in 3 weeks over 3
million interactions were made using #OneLessStranger (Airbnb Marketing Team, Shorty
Awards Entry Under Hashtag).
The Campaign
Screenshot from ‘Never a Stranger’ Campaign
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The #OneLessStranger served as the springboard that led to the launch of Airbnb’s largest and
first international television campaign, ‘Never a Stranger’ in April, 2015 (Richards, “Marketers
need to be Fearless”), with an advertising spend of $22.5 million (West, “Anatomy of an ad”).
Airbnb Advertising Spend 2014-2015 in USD million
The campaign ran in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. In the U.S. it debuted on April, 22nd 2015,
during NBC’s The Voice (Cava, “Airbnb creates ad touting kindness of strangers”). There were
15, 30 and 60 second edits of the campaign (Olson, “Airbnb ‘Never a Stranger’ by
TBWA/Chiat/Day”) that were aired on TV, digital cinema and social media (Dennis, “Airbnb
launches ‘Never a Stranger’ TV ads in Australia”). It was accompanied with a microsite that
detailed where one could get more information about the Airbnb hosts and local business owners
in the cities they lived in (Editor’s Pick, “Airbnb Aims to Appease Your Doubts About Staying in
a Stranger’s Home”). It was also one of the first to use Instagram’s carousel ads to push the
‘Never a Stranger’ campaign. (Ghosh, “Airbnb first to use Instagram carousel ads in ‘Never a
Stranger’ campaign”). Additionally, they employed experiential marketing tactics on their
website. When a user logged onto the website they were asked “Where are you going?” and
based on what they filled in, a list of places would appear which they never really dreamed of
like a sleepover in an Ikea setting. The core function of the experiential marketing tactics was to
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further encourage people to go beyond their comfort zone and still experience a sense of
belonging (Precourt, “How Airbnb Plans for Super-Brand Status”).
The campaign was created by TBWA\Chiat\Day LA as their first assignment for Airbnb. TBWA
was approached by Chesky and Mildenhall with the ambition of making Airbnb “the world’s
first community-driven super brand.” It took one month to shoot the entire ad, as they were shot
in real Airbnb host listings and recommendations of places to visit across five countries. The ad
depicts a real Airbnb guest Ellie, a girl experiencing her travel from New York across Paris,
Tulum, Tokyo and Rio while staying at an Airbnb. The video is accompanied with feel good
music and a soft but distinct voice over of a letter to her hosts. In an interview with Brent
Anderson, the Executive Creative Director from TBWA by thedrum.com, he states that “there is
a trend of leaving handwritten letters of appreciation” which was the inspiration behind using it.
Delving deeper, Anderson stated that this and taking a lead on the cities to shoot were inputs
from Airbnb. TBWA envisioned what the emotional impact of the ad should be and what they
wanted to cover. He further explains that they were “set out to prove that you can truly belong
anywhere, because that is Airbnb’s true north as a brand, and that journey is unique to Airbnb –
you go from being a stranger to acceptance then to bonding and then belonging.” This also
represents the structure of the narrative (West, “Anatomy of an ad”). The campaign aims at
attracting new users to try their platform by challenging concerns about living with a stranger. It
tackles the issue Airbnb faces head on through the campaign. And, by showcasing their host
community through the ad, they are targeting potential hosts to make them understand that they
are partners of the brand who represent their community and are a guide to their culture.
As an extension of the ‘Never a Stranger’ campaign, in July 2015, Airbnb launched the ‘Is
Mankind?’ ad to further establish positioning of “Belong Anywhere” and propogate a feeling of
inclusivity. According to Chesky, “The breakthrough of Airbnb is that it does more than give
you a place to sleep – it changes the way you experience the world, because when we trust in the
kindness of our fellow man, we discover that the world isn’t such a scary place after all” (Airbnb
Marketing, “Is Mankind”).
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Objectives and KPI’s
The three main objectives of the campaign were perceptual, business and behavioral. The
perceptual objective was to enhance the understanding of the Airbnb experience. The experience
was defined by association with their positioning like ‘belong anywhere,’ and phrases like ‘home
can be anywhere,’ and ‘lets me connect with communities all over the world.’ The outcome
would be measured based on how many recognized the campaign versus how many did not
(Effie Case Study, 2016). According to Chesky, the positioning and new logo were driven by the
idea that “belonging has always been a fundamental driver of humankind” (Email Interview with
Gillian West).
The business objective was to generate brand awareness by at least narrowing the gap by 5% as
compared to other travel websites like Expedia, Travelocity and Priceline and increase the edge
that it has over other home-sharing competitors (Effie Case Study, 2016). According to Airbnb’s
Mildenhall, “We have fantastic retention rate once people start using us, so the real mission was
to make more and more people aware of and comfortable with us.” He also states that people
think that Airbnb is an online retail property site and they are trying to establish the idea that “to
travel the world as a local is the superlative experience” (Cava, “Airbnb creates ad touting
kindness of strangers”). For him, “the consumer proposition boils down to providing friendly
local help that happens to come with lodging.”
Finally, the behavioral objective was to drive curiosity amongst audience without having a call to
action. It was a brand ad that was an attempt to prove it would drive business. This increase in
interest was measured by Airbnb’s web analytics to see if the ad attracted more website traffic
(Effie Case Study, 2016).
Campaign Audience
For the ‘Never a Stranger’ campaign Airbnb’s audience is based on psychographics rather than
demographics. According to the Effie case study, after doing an analysis of its current target
audience, Airbnb understood that travelling was an essential part of their life. This aided in
identifying a new target segment named “Identity Voyagers.” Identity Voyagers were identified
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as individuals who are “tech-savvy, super-social, open minded travelers of all ages: 1/3rd
millennials, 1/3rd Gen X and 1/3rd Boomers from the U.S (Effie Case Study, 2016).
RESULTS
Airbnb Awareness Calculations
According to the Effie case study, “in just 60 days, Airbnb challenged Americans’ fear of
strangers to create a positive brand awareness, understanding and credibility.” “With only two
months to target an all-new audience, Airbnb engineered a 7% uptick in brand awareness.”
Airbnb showed more awareness increase than other brands in the category though they spent
only 10% of what is usually spent. “A double-digit lift in brand perceptions with great resonance
amongst Identity Voyagers” (Effie Case Study, 2016).
Airbnb Perception Calculations
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Airbnb Website Traffic Calculations
Finally, “web traffic spikes 3-4x the baseline during broadcast airings.” The cities of
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Phoenix that were selected for heavy advertising showed
a 16% increase in site traffic as compared to cities like Portland, Nashville, Richmond and
Denver (Effie Case Study, 2016).
Airbnb Revenue in NYC from 2010-2015
Additionally, in an email interview Gillian West conducted by me, she mentions an increase in
revenue post the campaign. Elaborating further she states that it was predicted in 2015 that
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Airbnb could a generate revenue of $900 million in 2016 and in the third quarter of 2015 it
recorded 2.2 billion bookings and earned $340 million in revenue.
In 2016, TBWA\Chiat\Day and Starcom MediaVest were awarded a Silver for Airbnb’s ‘Never a
Stranger’ campaign in the Global Effie awards category. And, also won a Bronze for the same
campaign in the North American Effie awards category. Mildenhall also won Adweek’s 2016
Brand Genius Award for his work at Airbnb which includes the ‘Never a Stranger’ campaign.
RELEVANT EXPERIENCE
Soylent Drink - Product Image
In an increasingly crowded landscape for marketing it has become more important for brands to
build trust by breaking the clutter, according to a Nielsen survey “6 in 10 global respondents
prefer to buy new products from familiar brands” (Nielsen, “Top 10 Trusted Brands”). Soylent
falls under the category of scrutiny because it’s a brand that is trying to replace an instinctive
human habit of consuming food. It invented in 2013, by co-founders Rob Rhinehart and Matt
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Cauble as way to avoid cooking and getting frustrated over spending money. Soylent is a meal
replacement product and comes in powder, liquid and bar form. It is said that it provides the
essential nutrients required for a human to sustain themselves. Soylent doesn’t address its trust
issues the way Airbnb does (by addressing it). In the words of Rhinehart, “it's a salacious, easy
story that we're trying to drastically change people's behavior, or do something against how
people would want to live. We're not. We're trying to use science and technology to make food
better.”
Soylent Facebook Ad Aimed at Women
Soylent markets its products very similar to weight loss products by providing calorie counts
rather than as something you would consume instead of the food that you are usually used to. It
has a long way to go in terms of its marketing efforts but has created a buzz in the industry proof
of which is its sales have gone up by 300% in 2016. What it seems to do very similar to Airbnb
is that it tells its founding story very similarly and one of the reasons it was founded was because
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Rhinehart was broke (Elliot, With Soylent Sales Up 300 percent, “Its Founders Have Eyes on
Europe”).
MY ASSESSMENT
Airbnb has come a long way from a startup in 2007 to a multi-million-dollar global business
today. Airbnb was successful in creating brand awareness through the ‘Never a Stranger’
campaign. However, a shift in human behavior cannot be achieved through one campaign and
Airbnb still needs to make headway to change perceptions related to trust which is on the decline
with recent political and legal issues the company has faced. In an interview I conducted with
Tom Slee, he explains that, “a promise that appeals to a lot of people, ‘never a stranger’
campaign invokes this promise, personal versus corporate contact, not a mass but personal
experience, got authenticity to it. That kind of travel is appealing to travelers. When you scale it
up, is the problem.” What he means by this is, once everyone starts renting their houses for a
short period of time, it affects the long term rental value and makes it harder for locals to find
places to live. On the other hand, Airbnb is also the reason for many individuals to be able to
make a living and save money while travelling so it is not black and white when it comes to
decide whether it’s disrupting or enhancing an economy.
Airbnb is doing a great job highlighting emotional drives of its potential audience but at the same
time, I believe it is also a bit far-fetched. It needs to strike a better balance with reality and
emotional drives. Understanding why people visit places or go on vacations apart from exploring
or business travel is another key aspect that Airbnb needs to focus on. A lot of people go on
vacations to relax and this is a potential market segment that Airbnb can tap into. To speak to
this, one of the respondents to a survey conducted by me said, “Airbnb is good for cost savings.
Hotels are good if you want to relax and not care about taking care of your surroundings.”
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SOURCES CITED
Primary Resources
Email Conversation with Gillian West, Journalist, The Drum.com. Conducted on Oct 21, 2016.
On the Phone Interview with Tom Slee, Industry Expert on Sharing Economy. Conducted on Oct
15, 2016.
Online Survey Conducted with 34 Respondents, Age Range of 18-55 years, Men and Women.
Conducted on Nov 3, 2016.
TED Talk by Joe Gebbia, Feb 2016
Secondary Resources
Adage, Airbnb Expanding Services to Dining, City Tours with New App, Aug 16, 2016.
Accessed on Nov 9, 2016.
Adam Olson, Airbnb ‘Never a Stranger’ by TBWA/Chiat/Day, campaignlive.com, Apr 22, 2015.
Accessed on Sept 21, 2016.
Airbnb Marketing, Creating #OneLessStranger:Stories of Belonging, Airbnb Blog, Jan 1, 2015.
Accessed on Sept 21, 2016.
Airbnb Marketing Team, Shorty Awards Entry Under Hashtag, shortyawards.com Apr 20, 2015.
Accessed on Nov 9, 2016.
Airbnb Website, About Us, https://www.airbnb.com/about/about-us. Accessed on Sept 21, 2016.
Airbnb Marketing, Is Mankind, Airbnb Blog, Jan 1, 2015. Accessed on Oct 10, 2016.
Airbnb’s $2 Billion Negative Impact on Lodging Industry and NYC economy, Hotel Association
of New York City, Oct 30, 2015. Accessed on Accessed on Oct 10, 2016.
Brian Chesky, Belong Anywhere, http://blog.airbnb.com/belong-anywhere/, July 16, 2014.
Accessed on Accessed on Oct 10, 2016.
Burt Helm, Airbnb Is Inc.'s 2014 Company of the Year, Inc, From the Dec 2014/Jan 2015 issue
of Inc. Magazine. Accessed on Accessed on Oct 10, 2016.
David McMillin, 3 Reasons Why Airbnb Is Achieving So Much Success, pcma.org, Oct 03
2016. Accessed on Nov 9, 2016.
Derek Thomson, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on Building a Company and Starting a 'Sharing'
Revolution, The Atlantic, Aug 13, 2013. Accessed on Nov 9, 2016.
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Elaine Glusac, Hotels Vs. Airbnb: Let the Battle Begin, New York Times Jul 20, 2016. Accessed
on Nov 9, 2016.
Emily Badger, Airbnb announces 'comprehensive review' after complaints of bias, The
Washington Post, Jun 2, 2016. Accessed on Nov 9, 2016.
Editor’s Pick, Airbnb Aims to Appease Your Doubts About Staying in a Stranger’s Home,
creativity-online.com, Apr 21, 2015. Accessed on Nov 9, 2016.
Effie case study, 2016, Accessed on Nov 23, 2016.
Geoffrey Precourt, How Airbnb plans for "super-brand" status, WARC, March 2015. Accessed
on Oct 10, 2016.
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Stranger’, The Drum, May 14, 2015. Accessed on Sept 21, 2016.
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