After some time for it to sink (there’s a pun there… get it?) in, I think the message of this ad is ‘cool’. As in, I can rent Scottie Pippin’s house? Cool! Look how you can throw baskets from the master bedroom that overlooks the indoor basketball court!! Cool! I can actually live like a celebrity, even for just a few days? Cool!
This is all just so… Cool!
It is designed to break down expectations, and make people who haven’t or would never look at AirBnB to give the site a visit and look through it to see what other ‘cool’ things could be found.
It’s like when a Ford dealer brings in a Lamborghini and puts it on display in the dealership. None of their customers can actually afford one, and they don’t expect to sell it, but it sure creates interest and it gets people talking! Just as we have been here!
As VR owners and managers, concerned with PR and perceptions of our industry, we look at this very differently than others do. So ignore the silly things being said in the ad, they’re practically unimportant, step back and take a larger perspective.
From the humble beginnings of renting an air mattress in the corner of some stranger’s basement because you can’t afford a real hotel room… to being able to rent a celebrity mansion and live like most people never get to see, no less do? Wow! Has AirBnB ever changed! It’s grown up! It’s cool! It’s arrived! It’s something the cool, rich people use too!
(And by the way, cool rich people, buy some of our stock the next time you talk to your broker!)
The talk of house rules is the filler, an excuse to show different parts of the home. It doesn’t matter. The message is the owner, and the property… and through AirBnB you too can live like this! Even if only briefly as a guest, or as a cool property owner! Come join the cool kids on AirBnB!
That is the message that I think is being delivered here.
