When Travel Stalled, Airbnb Rewound and Stayed Local

The idea of any travel brand counting 2020 as a “winning” year would strike even the most wildly confident marketing executive as absurd. And yet, for Airbnb, 2020 was successful. Proof of that can be found in the company’s December IPO, which opened at $146, more than double the price it set the day before its market debut. When Covid-19 hit the U.S. in March 2020, lockdowns became the norm worldwide and the travel industry—which had seen demand grow exponentially since 2014—suddenly seemed all but dead, Airbnb responded directly to the abrupt changes in the way people were defining travel. Flying was out of the question for most consumers. Instead, short car trips were the way to get a break from the isolation and restrictions of life during Covid-19, and the company's marketing reflected not only these altered travel patterns, but also consumers' moods and the need for local experiences. The past 14 months have been marked by unparalleled loss, fear, uncertainty and discontent, but Airbnb, Adweek’s Experiential Brand of the Year and winner of Experiential Activation by a Travel Brand and Best Use of Partnership in an Experiential Activation, responded to the crises of 2020 with quirky humor grounded in the brand’s core premise: sharing unique travel experiences. The only real difference was distance. A short, strange trip While nearly all industries and most media activations faced unprecedented challenges last year, the ability for a travel brand to thrive using experiential marketing was not simply a matter of luck, says Nick Wilkins, communications director for Airbnb, which surmounted these difficulties, he says, by staying true to its brand identity and marketing attitude. The brand’s positioning of “people belonging everywhere” shifted naturally to “belonging here.” In the era of social distancing and stay-at-home orders, the typical allure of far-off, short-term rentals in Airbnb members’ dwellings held little appeal. And given state and city governments’ restrictions, travel became more of a hassle than a practical consideration. Instead, with its “Go Near” campaign promoting local travel, in partnership with Weber Shandwick West, Los Angeles, Airbnb “curated” stays in unusual places for local residents looking for an escape from their all-too-familiar surroundings. Among the curious curations listed on Airbnb was a stay for Garden Staters at the 19th-century Jersey Shore roadside attraction Lucy the Elephant, the six-story piece of novelty architecture that became a symbol of resiliency after it was saved from destruction in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In September, Los Angeles County residents got the chance to book one of five nostalgic stays in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’s mansion. Guests were charged $30 a night in recognition of the 30 years since the Will Smith sitcom first aired on NBC, and the effort garnered nearly 19,000 original stories, 39 million organic social impressions, 4.3 million listings views and 99% positive sentiment. The Work Nearness and kindness—what better, more soothing themes could a travel marketer embrace during one of the saddest times in history? Not many travel marketers in 2020 could do that, of course. But Airbnb had some advantages. For one thing, the idea of sharing a nearby home as opposed to marketing far-off destinations was more easily available for the brand versus its competitors. After all, a hotel wasn't about to build a suite of rooms around the corner for prospective guests. And no other short-term rental platform had the scale of Airbnb's host network. But it took the campaigns to inspire Airbnb users to book and for hosts to remain on the platform. "Be Kind, Rewind," in which Airbnb partnered with the world's only remaining Blockbuster video store to create a '90s-themed stay, led to 4,700 news stories around the world, 1.5 million social engagements—along with a 21% engagement rate with the campaign's content—and ultimately led to 100% organic traffic visits to the platform. The corresponding "Go Near" campaign generated 18,900 original news items, 39 million organic social impressions, 4.3 million listing views and 99% positive sentiment rating. “Airbnb has always been about unique experiences,” Wilkins says. “Every hotel room in every hotel chain is the same. Airbnb is a home, and our stays are as different as the individual host. So, we thought, ‘How can we take that to the extreme?’ And we came up with 'Airbnb Night At.'” The 2019 "Airbnb Night At" campaign preceded 2020's "Go Near," but it influenced the brand's focus on "unique experiences," Wilkins says. Even before the pandemic, Airbnb sought to raise the level of its experiences to something more playful and extraordinary. Starting in 2019, it listed stays at the Downton Abbey estate, at Dracula’s castle for Halloween and inside the Oscar Mayer “Wienermobile.” It even created a Malibu Barbie Dreamhouse in partnership with Mattel for the iconic doll’s 60th birthday. “The key ingredient in each of these partnerships was nostalgia,” Wilkins says. “That’s what made these things fly.” The brand also listed a stay in a cable car suspended thousands of feet up in the Swiss Alps. Parisians could sleep in a bedroom inside a local aquarium where guests were surrounded (safely) by sharks. And in the U.S., Airbnb got an idea for a local rental that would tap into what many adults in 2020 would view as a more carefree moment in entertainment and cultural history. Turning back time “Be kind, rewind” is a familiar phrase to anyone who ever thoughtfully returned a VHS rental in the 1990s. That’s when video rental chain Blockbuster peaked with over 9,000 global locations. As of 2019, only one Blockbuster remained. So, when Airbnb heard the news about the world’s last Blockbuster, the idea of transforming it into a stay clicked. The brand's “Be Kind, Rewind: A Sleepover at the World's Last Blockbuster” campaign (also with Weber Shandwick West), which had been shelved until Covid-19 caseloads began to stabilize last summer, was more than an attempt to offer a contrast to the Netflix-fueled intensity of binging. It served as a reminder of how residents of a community pull together in the face of change. Even as movie theaters shuttered during the pandemic and streaming video took over as the preferred viewing platform, community support kept the planet’s final officially licensed Blockbuster open in Bend, Ore. (population: 76,000). In keeping with the short-term rental giant’s drive to connect locals to nearby attractions, the store was transformed into a '90s-themed Airbnb stay, complete with a replica of a living room from 30 years ago. “We lean into pop culture, and we try to use our platform to bring those cultural elements to life," Wilkins says. "In all cases, the host provides the experience. We wanted that message to come through.” As the U.S. and parts of Western Europe begin to reopen, the idea of a "travel reset" has already become ingrained at Airbnb, Wilkins says. For the brand, that means stressing flexibility by accommodating sudden trip planning and longer stays, a trend the company expects to endure. And Airbnb's marketing will continue to take its cues from evolving travel trends and focus on search, PR and experiential to drive a message about what the company offers and what it ultimately represents. By casting "experiences" as synonymous with "travel," Airbnb is extending its brand identity, and in a year when travel appeared lost, it found new ways to keep its hosts and guests connected—and that will continue to be a point of departure for the brand as bookings pick up and new competitive pressures emerge. Check out all of Adweek's Experiential Awards honorees here.

Experiential Marketing

When Travel Stalled, Airbnb Rewound, Leaned Local and Remained Relevant Against All Odds

Adweek's Experiential Brand of the Year emphasized unique, targeted experiences in response to consumers' altered expectations

David Kaplan

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David Kaplan