Branded Airbnb Homes Are Becoming a Lucrative Way to Get Exposure

The catch? This package was only available on Airbnb, for two weekends. The lucky guests who managed to book the ultra exclusive stay will spend the night next weekend and the first weekend of December, and the brand doesn’t currently have any plans to make the listing available again.

Within the last six months, brands from Jim Beam to Barbie have partnered with Airbnb for the ease of getting on the platform and the resulting media attention, finding Airbnb to be a low-cost alternative to traditional advertising with, in some cases, even greater reach.

“I can safely say this is by far the highest generating, most reached PR program Jim Beam has ever executed,” said Dan Cohen, a spokesman for Beam Suntory, Jim Beam’s parent company. The idea for the collaboration came from Jim Beam’s public relations team as well as an outside agency, ICF Next.

A week after the Jim Beam distillery stay was announced on the platform, toymaker Mattel listed Barbie’s Malibu Dream House, a property redecorated in the iconic doll’s signature hot pink to mark her 60th anniversary. In September, Highclere Castle from the BBC period drama Downton Abbey landed on the platform in connection with the premiere of the Downton Abbey film.

Airbnb has long included brand opportunities on its platform with its “At Night” campaign, which makes limited nights available at interesting places like Boston’s Fenway Park, or a night in a house made of LEGOs. Booking.com has also worked alongside movie studios to create special nights in branded properties, most recently turning a walk-up in Brooklyn into the Addams Family mansion for Halloween weekend.

Of course, from an ROI standpoint, the fact that Jim Beam already owned the home onsite helped. It had previously only been made available to family and friends of the company. Highclere Castle, the home where Downton Abbey was filmed, was already taking tour groups.

According to Jim Beam, the stunt cost less than $50,000 (including agency fees) and garnered 650 million impressions in publications like the New York Times, USA Today, Thrillist and Business Insider, to name a few.

In comparison, Jim Beam’s “Make History” campaign, which introduced the actress Mila Kunis as the brand’s spokeswoman, received only 275 million impressions.

Cohen describes the Airbnb campaign as less of a partnership and more of an “unofficial collaboration.” Along with the description of the distillery’s stillhouse on Airbnb was a small disclaimer: “This listing is not sponsored, or offered in collaboration with, Airbnb.”

The spirit company went through the same avenues as any host to list the property on Airbnb, but did not solicit a press release from the home-sharing site unlike the Malibu Dreamhouse or Highclere Castle.

“We reached out to Airbnb,” Cohen said. “They fulled supported this, as long as we followed the proper guardrails.”

According to Vinayak Hegde, Airbnb’s chief marketing officer of homes and vice president of growth, the collaboration with Jim Beam wasn’t new for the platform, but “there was a concerted effort this year” to make such offerings part of a the company’s marketing plan.

Unlike with Jim Beam, Hegde said that previously, Airbnb had been the one reaching out to brands, but that now it was more a mix.

“Brands often give us a heads up, as they still need to meet our hosting criteria, and in some cases it’s more of a joint effort,” Hegde explained. “We have brands reaching out with their 2020 plans.”

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