Matt Landau
  • Founder, VRMB

How Do We Feel About This Airbnb Ad Featuring Scottie Pippen?

To me, there's something a little awkward about addressing the topics of bad guests (smoke, noise, parties) so bluntly.

It's like, these are real problems, and you shouldn't do them, wink wink.

I kinda like it. But not sure. Thoughts?



Wow. Interesting.

I get that same “wink, wink” feel…but I’m pretty sure they are being authentic in really wanting to turn around the self inflicted stigma of Airbnb’s being party houses. They’ve instituted rule changes on being able to more easily kick out guests who violate occupancy and noise rules, so this is consistent….but still…feels forced from a advertisement perspective. Maybe it’s just the random nature of Scotty Pippen being a weird choice lol.
One thing to note that’s interesting is that he’s renting out some property he owns, I wonder if that’s a play to high end luxury homes or just a byproduct of the marketing idea someone came up with
 
The whole thing came across as very weird and pointless to me.

1) I didn't get a message from it. What is the point that they're trying to get across? Is it just brand awareness? I'm just lost.

2) The whole idea of "Don't do this in this house... but it's actually okay to do it because I do it... comes across to me as "Completely ignore all of the rules set for the home you may stay in, because the owners are breaking all of those rules anyway!" which is an absolute disaster of a message to put out there!

It looks like the 'baby throwing' creatives who used to work for VRBO have found a new home!

It continues to amaze me what people actually get paid for these days. :rolleyes:
 
The whole thing came across as very weird and pointless to me.

1) I didn't get a message from it. What is the point that they're trying to get across? Is it just brand awareness? I'm just lost.

2) The whole idea of "Don't do this in this house... but it's actually okay to do it because I do it... comes across to me as "Completely ignore all of the rules set for the home you may stay in, because the owners are breaking all of those rules anyway!" which is an absolute disaster of a message to put out there!

It looks like the 'baby throwing' creatives who used to work for VRBO have found a new home!

It continues to amaze me what people actually get paid for these days. :rolleyes:

Haha, I thought the same thing on your #2 point....thats probably where the "wink wink" sort of feel comes from. What are you telling me Scottie Pippin?! Is it that you smoke inside your house but I am not allowed?? Thats not going to encourage me to not smoke in your house, if I did actually want to for some reason. Why relate that to saying only you can shoot hoops from the bedroom window when if that feature is in a house, its clearly expected a renter would like me would use it. If the aim is to do a fun campaign that is aimed at "don't rent here if you are planning on partying and doing crazy stuff that bothers the neighbors"....well I am either too old to get the messaging the younger target audience is understanding, or this is just a really poorly executed Ad. Maybe a little bit of both haha.

I do think Airbnb is trying to get out of that "party house" stigma, while at the same time trying to attract higher end owners that can attract higher end guests....and I see both of those things as good things...but man, for a company with that much money, you'd think they'd be able to do better than some convoluted and confusing messaging from Scottie Pippin lol
 
I will start showing this to our owners as the very reason why "airbnbing" your home (funny how that is now a real verb) can be an absolute nightmare. There is so much that is wrong with this. It didn't give me any feeling that these are serious restrictions.

It's too playful by far. To me, its says "well if you're Scotty Pippen you can do whatever you want in a rental home". Well Scotty, please don't rent from us if that is your attitude...

More ads like this make airbnb less like a place we should advertise.
 
I get the feeling that there's some kind of celebrity immunity here, where it's "cool" that Scottie Pippen says it but as a regular host it would just come across as brash. I guess the idea is to attract more hosts to join Airbnb but I really feel like it's offputting for guests.
 
Yea, this is weird. I think they had a good idea that people might want to book his home, but the landing of it fell short. Reminds me of the Super Bowl Commercial from Nationwide that will always be remembered as "Nationwide, my kid just died" advertising is fickle and your great idea can fall short. I envision that window being broken and many others when you get a bunch of people in there trying to make the shot! It also just highlights all the things you can't do in the home? Why not share the many beautiful things the home does have and sell it on those features. Right now I a don't know what amenities it has and who their target market is? And dang, Scottie got old, which means I am old, lol.
 
Nudge nudge wink wink marketing is so hard to pull off. I think this is an awful ad despite the messaging. The music alone is like some bad 1970s porn (no expert there LOL). Seriously though, I'm not even sure what the ad is telling me. Misbehave? Don't misbehave? Is it OK to misbehave for certain professions?

Golden rule in PR is to get ahead of the story. That being said, using bad behavior to market against bad behavior is just confusing and what ad executive approved such negative messaging? Fail.
 
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.
 

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