Airbnb’s first major integrated marketing campaign might seem like its ‘for the birds,’ but there’s plenty for humans to look at too.
The living-space sharing platform recently launched a marketing campaign titled “Every Traveler Needs A Home,” where it built and displayed 50 birdhouses, each one a miniature model of an actual listing on Airbnb. The birdhouses will be on display Dec 16-22 in New Orleans at Audubon Park’s Tree of Life.
Airbnb hired San Francisco agency Pereira & O’Dell to develop the campaign, which, focused on migratory birds, who are the “ultimate travelers.”
“We wanted to capture the experience of hosting a traveler – this time with birds,” said PJ Pereira, chief creative Officer and co-founder of Pereira & O’Dell. “The artists’ personal touch on creating these extraordinary birdhouses is visually stunning and will certainly pique interest in the truly unique listings you can find on Airbnb.”
A central piece of the campaign is this short film about the campaign, which includes footage of the artists visiting the Airbnb homes and then building and designing the miniature models of them. The film, along with interactive images of the birdhouses can be viewed on the campaign microsite birdbnb.com. On the site, when you roll over images of the birdhouses, you can actually see the full scale homes they were modeled on, bringing the transformation to life.
The $2 million campaign will be running on television, in cinemas and online starting December 16. Media partners include Travel Channel, Afar, Gawker, Huffington Post, BBC, Dwell, Brit + Co and Lonely Planet.
“We created these birdhouses inspired by real Airbnb homes and the accompanying film as a metaphor for the hospitality about which our company is built: Our hospitality is completely individual and designed by our hosts who know that making people (or birds!) feel at home anywhere in the world comes from warmth, intuition and an attention to detail,” said Amy Curtis-McIntyre, CMO, Airbnb. “We love the world’s real travelers and this is an invitation to travel in a new way.”
