Hasta La Creative!

Airbnb is no stranger to controversy in its marketing efforts.

The home sharing service recently teamed up with Strother Nuckels Strategies for a political campaign which claimed that the company helps middle class families. That work came in response to an effort launched last summer by lobbying group the Share Better Coalition which criticized the company, claiming that forty percent of Airbnb revenue in New York went to real estate moguls.

Last fall, the company angered some in San Francisco with an OOH campaign advocating against Proposition F, a proposed law that would have required Airbnb to be classified as a hotel chain, by lightly shaming libraries and other such organizations for the tax money they receive from the hotel industry and businesses like Airbnb. In the fallout from that campaign, CEO Brian Chesky essentially laid the blame on TBWAChiatDay, claiming the agency had “embarrassed” his company.

Airbnb’s latest move might not sit well with its agency partners, either.

The company is using content-sourcing company MoFilm to crowd-source ideas for its holiday campaign with an “Airbnb Holiday Ideas Contest.”

The call for entries, which was written by MoFilm, reads in part, “It’s a pitch situation, where we’ll put forward the best-of-the-best from our global network in an effort to gain the business.” It then calls members of its community to “Think big and think local. Infuse your ideas with knowledge of your own city, or cities you’ve been to in the past. And remember it’s not just Christmas, it’s any holiday worthy of a trip via Airbnb.”

The person running this contest is Carter Hahn, who spent several years as an account manager at Goodby Silverstein & Partners and served as lead on the HP, Adobe and Nintendo accounts.

The deadline for submissions is October 3, so if you want to participate you’ll have to hurry over to MoFilm and sign the NDA to get the brief. The top five concepts will be awarded a $500 cash prize!

Strother Nuckels Strategies launched a new campaign for Airbnb making an emotional appeal to viewers via interviews with Airbnb hosts who have gotten through tough times thanks to the home sharing service.

In “Meet Kevin and Esther of the Outer Sunset,” for example, Kevin explains that he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2013. Since then, he and his family have used income from Airbnb to help pay their mortgage and Kevin’s hospital bills, as well as saving for college tuition for their children. Near the end of the spot, the message, “77% of Airbnb hosts in San Francisco say they use money they earn to help pay their rent or mortgage” appears onscreen. 

It’s not only San Francisco that gets the spotlight, though. In “Meet Dreama of Carrollton,” a woman explains that income from Airbnb helped keep her and her family in their house during a period of unemployment. Other spots feature Airbnb hosts from Vancouver, Los Angeles and New York. The campaign will run in broadcast, radio spots, pre-roll and banner ads in those locations through November. 

“The hosts telling their stories directly is really powerful; it’s showing people the real faces of Airbnb,” Ben Nuckles, Strother Nuckels Strategies partner at Strother Nuckels Strategies told Campaign. “None of these are scripted…We really wanted it to be an authentic story as told by the hosts.”

As individual stories the simple spots work to highlight the human connection of the service but there’s also a further implication that Airbnb benefits middle class families. That message is in stark contrast to a campaign launched last summer by lobbying group the Share Better Coalition, which criticized Airbnb, claiming in one ad that forty percent of Airbnb revenue in New York went to real estate moguls. The response by Airbnb, via this campaign, highlights how the company is helping middle class families, while side-stepping the specific real estate mogul criticism made by Share Better New York. It avoids the kind of controversy generated by TBWA’s OOH campaign against Proposition F in San Francisco, which would have required Airbnb to essentially be classified as a hotel chain, an effort that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said “embarrassed” the company. 

That didn’t stop the Share Better Coalition from firing back, though. In response it launched its own “Dear Airbnb” campaign, featuring messages accusing the service of “making millions from unregistered rental listings” and asking the company to abide by laws that “exist to protect us all.”

“Rather than creating petty misleading advertisements, we invite Share Better and their hotel industry backers to join us in working with city policymakers who agree the current registration system is broken,” an Airbnb spokesperson wrote in a statement. “We are ready, able and willing to work with city officials to find real solutions that protect housing and enable middle class residents to share their homes, but 400 percent increases in permit fees, taxes on silverware and an application process that can take months to complete all need to be fixed.”

Share Better New York and Share Better San Francisco both plan to release additional campaigns this year.

If you fancy hanging out in the sizzling-hot middle of nowhere, with an endless expanse of sand all around and the occasional scorpion scuttling by for distraction, Audi’s got the promotion for you.

As part of its Emmy Awards sponsorship, the auto brand and Airbnb will offer fans the chance to book three-day getaways at the luxury Rondolino Residence in Death Valley, Nevada. The place is so isolated, it has no actual address—just coordinates on a map.

Guests get to drive a 2017 Audi R8 during their stay, which also includes chauffeur service from the airport, meals prepared by a personal chef and, according to press materials, “evening entertainment/activities.” (Scorpion races, perhaps?)

To tout the promo, Venables Bell & Partners created the fun spot below—it almost feels like a Supwer Bowl ad—which is running online and will also air during ABC’s Emmys telecast on Sunday.

read more

As if the hipster havens of Brooklyn and Austin weren’t already funky—and beery—enough, Leinenkugel’s has transformed vacation properties in each location into Northwoods, Wis.-style “Leinie Lodges,” and made the units available for rent on Airbnb.

The promotion is designed to help the Chippewa Falls, Wis.-based brand (owned by SABMiller) gain extra visibility in those markets, where it has been testing its brews of late.

“We wanted to create a space where people can relax and enjoy beer,” founder Dick Leinenkugel told Austin Fusion. The two-bedroom Brooklyn property (above) can accommodate six guests, includes a roomy roof deck and rents for $449 a night. Down in East Austin (below), you’ll pay $375 for three bedrooms with space for eight.

The rentals are available through the end of August.

Airbnb has become renowned for offbeat promotions, both for itself and in tandem with other brands. Stunts range from hosting a sleepover in an Australian Ikea store to tricking out an Alpine ski lift as a mountaintop crash pad.

The “Leinie Lodges” provide more down-to-earth accommodations. Renters get thoroughly modern, upscale digs—with lots of Leinenkugel’s-branded extras. These include bean-bag toss games, bar signage, canoe paddles, Adirondack chairs and plenty of crimson throw-pillows embroidered with the brewer’s name. At each location, the fridges come packed with Leinenkugel’s brews such as Summer Shandy, Grapefruit Shandy and Canoe Paddler.

So, you’ll basically be living inside a huge ad, stocked with toys and free beer. You’ll be living the American Dream. Cheers!

For most people, spending a night in cable car 9,000 feet above sea level probably doesn’t sound that relaxing. But if you’re a ski buff or a sucker for a view, you might enjoy the prize in Airbnb’s latest sweepstakes—a stay in a tricked-out lift above a resort in the French Alps.

The hospitality company is turning a gondola at Courchevel into a bedroom for four (assuming they’re willing to pair off to share the two beds). The winners will arrive by snowmobile, enjoy a regional dinner in the cable car, and ride to the top of the mountain Saulire, where they’ll have access to the bathroom in the station, because—surprise, surprise—there isn’t one in the car.

The next morning, after breakfast, they also get first dibs on the slopes.

If that seems like your kind of thing, enter before Feb. 25 by making your case in 100 words over at the Airbnb listing. “Vertigo sufferers need not apply,” it helpfully notes.

If you’re selected, you’ll still have to get yourself there. But judging by some of Airbnb’s other willfully quirky promo digs, it may well be worth it. While it’s not as spacious as a commercial jet converted into an apartment, it almost definitely beats sleeping in an Ikea.

I love the smell of Hemnes in the morning.

Some lucky Australians will soon wake up in an Ikea store in New South Wales after spending a night there as part of an oddball promotion with Airbnb.

Interested parties can sign up on the lodging rental site for a chance to win a sleepover in one of three groovy showrooms: “Rustic Charm,” “Inner City Living” and “Modern Elegance.” Three groups of up to four guests will get to stay in the store overnight on Aug. 31, enjoy a fancy dinner and even keep the sheets they slept on. Local marketing shops The Monkeys and Mango helped devise the stunt.

Ikea says the promotion is designed to inspire people to make more of their homes “from clearing and creating space to making homes guest ready in the sharing economy.” Because nothing’s better than taking in boarders to make ends meet. That rocks!

Lots of folks would probably savor the chance to enjoy pre-assembled Ikea merchandise. I hope the contest winners gain a measure of revenge for consumers worldwide by going through the store and taking all the furniture apart.

CREDITS
Clients: Ikea and Airbnb
Creative Agency: The Monkeys
Event: Mango
PR: Mango and Espresso Communications

Situés dans le sud de San Francisco, les bureaux de la société AirBnB sont situés dans un ancien batiment industriel datant de 1917 réaménagé par le cabinet d’architecture Gensler. Des locaux magnifiques, avec notamment un espace central de toute beauté avec un mur de végétation. Plus dans la suite.

Airbnb, an online service that connects travelers with people who want to rent out their homes, is beginning its first integrated national advertising campaign.

É a primeira vez que o Vine é usado desta forma, com uma mecânica bastante simples e coerente, incentivando a criatividade dos usuários para um objetivo em comum.

Já vimos vários concursos e ações de marcas com objetivo de usar o Vine App de forma criativa. Mas desta vez, o Airbnb quer levar o Vine para outro nível e criar o primeiro curta-metragem filmado com o aplicativo.

Em parceria com a agência Muller, a empresa lançou o “Hollywood and Vines“, uma campanha pedindo aos usuários que contribuíssem com um vídeo de até 6 segundos via Vine, seguindo as instruções postadas.

Participantes precisam escolher uma das cenas a serem criadas, filmá-las com o aplicativo e compartilhar no Twitter usando a hashtag #airbnbhv. Os melhores Vines serão editados, construindo um curta-metragem a ser exibido no Sundance Channel. Os vencedores também ganham $100 de créditos a serem gastos em serviços Airbnb.

Instruções para o usuário filmar cada cena

O conceito que temos de “filme” em nossas mentes está mudando.

A ideia de construir um filme através da participação dos fãs não é uma ideia nova. A ação, por exemplo, teve como inspiração o filme Life In A Day, do Riddle Scott, e outros como o The Johnny Cash Project.

Novas tecnologias e dispositivos como o smartphone fazem do filme um meio mais dinâmico, podendo ser acessado através de múltiplas “janelas”, carregando diferentes informações em um único frame. Esses caminhos podem levar para diferentes narrativas, e o filme se torna um exercício pessoal, descentralizado e participativo.

Uma ação para engajar uma plateia ocupada e multitarefa, que tem poder, sabedoria e quer participar.

Nesta ação, o filme já começa em seu processo de produção. Podemos ver futuras cenas e até partes que ficaram de fora em primeira mão, apenas acessando a hashtag do concurso.

Talvez essa possa ser uma das respostas à como engajar uma plateia ocupada e multitarefa que por vezes parece não assistir a nada, mas está ali e é extremamente observadora. Uma multidão que tem poder, sabedoria e quer participar.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
Twitter | Facebook | Contato | Anuncie