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By Kendra Barnett

We catch up with the rental app’s marketing boss, Hiroki Asai, to hear why he shifted its strategy so dramatically and how he’s confident it has now found a winning long-term formula.

An Airbnb ad launched today spotlights the perks of staying in one of its rentals rather than traditional hotels. In one of three playful, animated short films, a group of friends is ready for a relaxing, kiddo-free vacation – only to find the hotel pool teeming with screaming children. Luckily, the travellers find solace in a picture-perfect thatched-roof Airbnb with a peaceful, private pool. “Get an Airbnb and get a place to yourself,” a voiceover chimes.

The spot is part of a new brand campaign that will roll out across the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and a handful of other markets across the globe throughout the coming weeks.

It comes on the heels of the brand’s multichannel spring campaign, which spotlighted Rooms – Airbnb’s newly-rebranded offering of private rooms within shared homes – by telling the story of individual hosts from across the globe and the unique experiences that can come with a Rooms stay.

These and other Airbnb marketing efforts of the last few years evidence a broader paradigm shift in the way the brand aims to connect with and engage audiences everywhere. It’s a shift that began with the Covid-19 pandemic.

A strategic shift

When the pandemic upended the travel and tourism industry in 2020, Airbnb lost about 80% of its business overnight. As Brian Chesky, the company’s chief executive, told entrepreneur and ‘This Week in Startups’ podcast host Jason Calacanis: “We were staring into the abyss.”

Although the existential disruption may have easily sunk the business, Chesky and his team were determined to tackle the crisis opportunistically.

The challenge wasn’t in the remit of product, operations or finance alone. Marketing, too, would play a critical role. “It basically turned the company upside down – but it was also an opportunity to reimagine Airbnb a little bit and take a look at what the next iteration of Airbnb would be,” chief marketing officer Hiroki Asai tells The Drum.

The company’s founders, including Chesky, chief strategy officer Nathan Blecharczyk and chairman Joe Gebbia, sought to make Airbnb “a much simpler company” says Asai – one that was “creatively driven,” with brand and design at the heart of the corporate story.

For Asai, who has been at Airbnb for about three and a half years, the approach felt natural. The executive began his career as a graphic designer before spending 18 years on the marketing team at Apple. A core focus on design and brand-level storytelling is in his DNA.

Pre-pandemic, Airbnb’s marketing strategy was primarily performance-driven, with much of the brand’s marketing budget dedicated to digital advertising. But when the pandemic flipped the business on its head, performance marketing wasn’t delivering what the brand needed. Asai tells The Drum: “The problem was that Airbnb wasn’t able to put its own message out into people’s minds and out into the market, so the messages were being driven by reactive PR and comms and basically what the world and what social media was talking about. Airbnb kind of lost control of the brand a little bit – and of the message and the narrative.” To regain control of the narrative, Airbnb decided to dial back its investment in performance marketing significantly.

Instead, Asai says, the plan was to “go back to the core of what Airbnb was about – which is about core hosts, primary homes and guests.” The brand poured marketing dollars into communicating this message with big, bold brand campaigns instead of performance-driven buys.

It was a much-needed strategic adjustment, in Asai’s view. “As Airbnb was growing, pre-pandemic, it was losing its differentiation. There were a lot of competing options for travellers out there and Airbnb … was losing its uniqueness. It was losing its sense of brand and who it was. So, coming out of the pandemic, the decision was to really focus on the core business and to focus on creating experiences, creating features and creating a product … to differentiate ourselves – and then to use brand to actually communicate and teach people what those differences are.”

Keeping product and brand in dialogue at all times

The brand began to invest deeply in developing and highlighting specific features and tools that set its product and experience apart. For example, a key focus of the last few years has been building out Airbnb Categories – classifications of home types, styles and locations that help users find inspiration, discover unique stays and narrow down their search. Last year, Airbnb launched a campaign showcasing its range of over 60 Categories to explore on the platform – from treehouses and off-the-grid cabins to private islands and luxe mansions. It told the stories of travellers staying in some of the platform’s most unexpected and exciting homes, like a giant potato in Idaho and a cave home in Utah.

As Asai explains: “At the core of what we need to do is to create a product and experience that’s different than any other service. And to do that, we need to innovate on the software, on the technology. And we want to use brand not just to advertise our values and what we’re about – we also want to use brand to help explain what these features are and how they make for a different experience.”

And the shift change has largely paid off. Following the decision to reduce performance marketing spend, Airbnb’s traffic levels reached 95% of what they had been in 2019 before the pandemic. Chesky said in 2021 that the brand would never again rely so heavily on performance marketing. And two years after the decision to reallocate marketing spend, the company reported its most profitable fourth quarter on record in February 2023. Revenue jumped 24% year-over-year, helping Airbnb reach an Ebitda of $506m for the quarter.

Since the strategy is proving effective, Asai and his team are only digging deeper into ways to communicate product differentiators through a brand-first approach. Airbnb’s Rooms campaign earlier this year, he says, has been a successful example. “Our approach is that product development and marketing should go hand-in-hand. We’ll work off of one central customer insight that then feeds what we do on the product – and that same insight also feeds how we market it and how we talk about it in paid media and in PR.”

With Rooms, the central insight was that many Airbnb users were interested in more cost-effective stays but were sceptical of staying in a shared home where they knew very little about the host. “The barrier that’s keeping [users] from booking Rooms is that they really don’t know who that host is and need some insight. That led to this idea of a Host Passport and adding more than just kind of dry facts [and instead adding] more insights into the space, who the host is, the hosting journey, why they’ve decided to rent the room, the story of their home. Then that same insight fed the advertising in a way that put the experience [front and center].”

The in-housing philosophy

Airbnb is able to keep product and marketing so tightly interwoven in large part due to the brand’s in-housing model, according to Asai. Not only is all product development and technology design done in-house, but so too is the company’s marketing and advertising. As the executive puts it: “What that allows us to do is to have a very, very tight system for all customer-facing things, from marketing down to product – and to work off of one insight in an extremely integrated and consistent way.”

Operationally, too, Asai says, in-housing makes sense for Airbnb as it helps the company run a tighter ship. “It’s so much easier to not deal with multiple agencies and to not deal with what the agency wants to do versus what you want to do – plus timelines, cost, just the layers of management you have to have to keep those relationships going. More importantly, I think you get a much better creative product when you have the people that create the advertising sitting literally right next to the people that make the product.”

It’s an approach Asai believes in wholeheartedly. “I’m really bullish on in-housing creative because I’ve worked on both sides of the fence – I’ve worked on the agency side, on the design firm side, then as an in-house creative and then ultimately on the marketing side. I’ve seen all ends of it and I really think people with a creative background get short changed working on the service side – I think amazing work happens out of agencies, but I think for creative to grow, they really need to be exposed to everything that happens upstream … and everything that happens downstream. Being in-house really gives you that visibility in that breath. Ultimately, it makes you a better designer, makes you a better art director, makes you a better writer.”

Nonetheless, he acknowledges that in-housing may not be the appropriate model for every brand. He admits it can be “a very difficult thing to manage.” Airbnb, in his opinion, is uniquely poised to benefit from the model because of its roots in commercial creativity. “The reason it works for Airbnb is because we have creative founders and creative leaders. Our CEO was trained as a designer, so he has a unique understanding of the creative process and can champion it and make it work and he is really involved in the work.” But in-housing, Asai says, “is really not for everyone.”

Mapping out new frontiers

When it comes to the brand’s future, Asai is confident that the continued integration of product and marketing will be a boon to the brand’s success.

As it looks to the future, a major focus for the brand in the near- to medium-term is expansion into new markets. It’s a goal Chesky spoke about openly on the company’s latest earnings call earlier this month: “The next big focus for Airbnb is reliability. If we can make Airbnb even nearly as reliable in many markets as hotels, I think you’re going to open up a whole new generation of travelers to Airbnb.” In particular, the company is eyeing Asia Pacific, which Chesky says represents “a huge opportunity for growth.”

It’s a plan that Asai is eager to take part in, adding: “It’s also super exciting to be able to introduce Airbnb to whole new audiences and cultures.”

As the company aims to expand, a focus on brand-centric marketing will remain a key part of the growth strategy, with Chesky saying during that Q2 earnings call: “When you invest in a brand, when your brand’s a noun and a verb, and you have something unique, you get a lot of … benefits. And I think it’s going to be consistent and we’ll have pretty consistent marketing spend as a percent of revenue over time because of the strength of the brand.”

Feature Image Credit: Adobe Stock

By Kendra Barnett

Sourced from The Drum

By Jake Fichman

The world’s largest brands are winning the hearts and dollars of consumers in ways thought unimaginable just a decade ago. According to a Kantar study, 68% of US consumers expect that the brands they shop be clear about where they stand concerning social issues. Furthermore, Millennials and Generation Z top the charts in demanding that consumer brands go far beyond their utilitarian provisions, and get their hands dirty in engaging with the world’s hottest issues.

Outdoor goods store REI shocked the public nearly a decade ago by taking a stand against consumerism by literally closing their doors on Black Friday. Coining the campaign #OptOutside, the brand led with its values in place of its revenues and showed its customers that REI stands for more than the bottom line. Every year since REI has closed on Black Friday, yet the company’s revenues continued to hit record highs.

Ben and Jerry’s ice cream proved to its customers that the iconic brand is worth more than a tasty treat. While their product line stands clear and defined, the executives of Ben and Jerry’s found the trending wave of consumer concern for their dollar to go-to brands that mean more than profitability. The ice cream giant has found itself at the center of conversations and influence in social issues such as global warming, Black Lives Matter, Israeli-Palestinian debates, and marriage rights in America.

While global brands are spreading influence and giving up profits, other companies are taking it to even greater heights; some are investing millions into their leadership’s chosen issues. Airbnb took a stand during the Trump Administration by dedicating its empathy and dedication to refugees halted at the border. Aired during the Super Bowl, Airbnb pledged to provide short-term housing for over 100,000 displaced people. Furthermore, the brand promised to prove its compassion by donating $4 million to the International Rescue Committee in a campaign titled “We Accept.”

Following this successful campaign, on June 17, 2021, Airbnb announced the launch of a $25 million fund to support refugees and asylum seekers.

Other brands such as FUBU, Spanx, and Nike have been leading their industries for years by using social media channels to amplify their stances on social and political issues. Challenged by a younger, more concerned consumer base, these brands are forced onto the stand to testify about who and what they support.

While the general consumer once expected brands to fulfill a basic need, leaving social issues to politicians and NGOs, today the average shopper first researches the fundamental beliefs and social stances of their favorite brands. This attention to a brand’s character and identity finds its climax across social media channels where the world’s largest consumer brands can track trends of brand appreciation or antipathy in real-time.

US brands appear to be leading in today’s global fight for authority and brand value, putting their profits and consumer base at risk at the fear of falling into the shadows of consumer interest. Among their efforts, brands commit to:

  • Sacrificed profits for the sake of social justice
  • Use of digital assets to voice opinions on hot topics
  • Donations of millions of dollars to NGOs that stand for change
  • Purchasing of ad space to tie their brand name to a movement
  • Adjustments to ingredients and inputs to state their brand’s purity

When brands carry out social good campaigns properly, the benefits of sacrificed profits are exceeded by an increase in customer loyalty and positive engagement. While younger consumers show the highest sensitivities to a brand’s stance on a social issue, it’s apparent by the efforts and span of companies’ advertising efforts that they clearly see the return on vulnerability.

Feature Image Credit: Photo provided by Airbnb ad shown during Super Bowl 51

By Jake Fichman

Jake Fichman serves as international Media Advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office and is the Founder and CEO of Goldfish Marketing Agency in Israel. Originally from the USA, Jake specializes in international communications and strategic messaging.

Sourced from The Times or Israel

By Paul Rouke.

Airbnb started in 2008 and got its name when its three founders rented out air mattresses on the floor of their San Francisco apartment during a conference.

Since then, the company has come a long way.

It’s been disrupting the travel industry by understanding, and moving with, shifts in consumer behaviour.

Despite the fact my family have booked our last seven holidays with Airbnb, I still think it is one of the internet’s best kept secrets.

Here’s how Airbnb is shaping the future of the travel industry:

It’s aspirational

Remember the saying, there is no place like home?

The rise in popularity of boutique hotels proved that there was a growing segment of travellers who wanted a more varied choice of accommodation; an experience characterised with personalised touches and the chance to be immersed in the local culture.

Essentially, Airbnb is a boutique hotel on steroids.

With a homepage headline of “live there”, Airbnb offers the chance to stay in (sorry live in) aspirational, unique homes.

The whole idea is that staying with Airbnb is more than just a holiday, you get to experience new places just like the locals do, which appeals to people who don’t like to see themselves as normal tourists.

Offering some really unique properties for rent, in some of the world’s most spectacular locations, you’d expect that when you first land on the Airbnb website your emotions will be stirred.

Whether it be excitement, amazement or belonging, Airbnb captures these emotions with carefully chosen imagery and background videos.

Yes, there is the search facility layered on top, but first and foremost it has focused on connecting with visitors on a more personable level than any travel agency website I have been on.

I was recently in one of my local travel agents to exchange some money.

While scanning over the shelves of brochures, I couldn’t help but wonder what the cover of an Airbnb holiday brochure would look like.

Brochures

It’s built on pure trust

The only part of the whole customer experience that Airbnb has full control over is the website.

This means that the brand has to place complete trust and faith in the people from around the world who choose to rent their properties on the platform.

It also requires the people renting out their houses to place trust in their guests (who they have never met before), not to mention the trust the holidaymaker or business traveller has to place in their host, with the hope that “what they see online, is what they get.”

As expected, social proof plays an integral role in building that trust.

For people to spend money on their holiday, weekend getaway or business trip with no physical interaction and no “credible travel agent” behind the booking, requires great levels of transparency and confidence.

Don’t forget, you are not getting an ATOL protected holiday through Airbnb.

As you can see, Airbnb is definitely the best when it comes down to harnessing the power of genuinesocial proof.

It’s price sensible

Airbnb connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point.

For all those millions of people with children who have to go on holiday in school holidays, Airbnb is perhaps the biggest secret they are waiting to discover.

My family and I have booked our last seven family holidays through Airbnb, genuinely saving hundreds of pounds compared to what we would have paid booking through traditional channels.

It’s personable

From the copy used on the website, through to contacting Airbnb, you always receive a very personable experience.

Very often when you arrive at your property, hosts will leave a small welcome note or present to welcome you on your arrival.

Note

You may even get a welcome message on the chalkboard of your new home…

Chalkboard note

The biggest success that Airbnb delivers in this area is that 99% of the time you never actually interact in person with another human. Now that is a special user experience.

It’s innovative

Airbnb isn’t standing still.

I love how the company is now harnessing its community of hosts around the world to provide unique and memorable experiences for travellers whilst staying at their property.

This really helps Airbnb customers to ‘live like a local’.

It’s memorable

Whether a flat for a night, a castle for a week or a villa for a month, Airbnb connects people to unique and inspirational travel experiences.

With property type search filters including Tipi, Earth House and Treehouse, you know you are on to something quite unique.

For all us business travellers, Airbnb also provides us with unique opportunities at competitive prices.

In 2015, myself and two colleagues spent five days in central Vancouver staying in a luxury penthouse apartment worth over £2m.

The cost to us? £130 per person, per night.

It’s responsive

As a brand, Airbnb can provide lessons in responsiveness to many larger, and more experienced businesses.

In my seven family holidays through Airbnb, there was only one occasion where we were let down and when it became clear that we needed Airbnb to resolve our issue with our host, they got on to fixing the issues straight away.

Airbnb recognised the opportunity to turn a potential brand detractor into a brand advocate, by simply being responsive and respectful.

I, for one, gained increased levels of respect for their brand following this.

How many brands are truly responsive and respectful to customers when they have a negative user experience?

Messages

It’s beautiful

From the brand logo, through to the app the Airbnb design and user experience is quite simply beautiful.

I will hold my hands up and say, the Airbnb digital experience played a significant role in a current re-thinking of one of our client’s online experience.

Beautiful

It’s relevant

Small things throughout your stay show you how Airbnb is all about ensuring that customers truly enjoy their experience.

For example, when arriving at your destination Airbnb offers helpful directions to your accomodation.

Welcome

It’s human

In summary, Airbnb is human. Browse around and you see people like you and me who are a part of this unique, growing community.

The people who are taking a different path to experience more memorable, unique and personable travel experiences than we have ever had before.

Conclusion

To me, Airbnb is one of the most inspirational and progressive brands in the world, regardless of industry.

This is mainly due to its forward thinking and absolute focus on the customer experience.

The question is, will the Airbnb experience become the future of the travel industry?

And what can travel agents do to start offering their current customers some of what Airbnb have made central to their overall customer experience?

By Paul Rouke

Paul Rouke is Founder & CEO at PRWD, author and a contributor to Econsultancy. You can follow him on Twitter or hook up with him on LinkedIn.

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Sourced from Econsultancy