BOOKABLE BOOKS

TitleBOOKABLE BOOKS
BrandAIRBNB
Product / ServiceAIRBNB
CategoryA03. Targeted Ambient Media: Small Scale
EntrantTBWA\SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Entrant Company TBWA\SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Advertising Agency TBWA\SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Production Company EG+ WORLDWIDE Singapore, SINGAPORE

Credits

Name Company Position
Gary Steele TBWA\Singapore Creative Director
Raquel Fabienne Ang TBWA\Singapore Art Director
Lena Paik TBWA\Singapore Copywriter
Mandy Wong TBWA\Singapore Group Account Director
Joyce Wong TBWA\Singapore Account Director
Neha Sethi TBWA\Singapore Senior Account Executive
Teo Yi Zhen TBWA\Singapore Videographer
Louiza Joseph TBWA\Singapore Traffic Executive
Chua Ang Ru Digital Arts Network Technical Lead
Peter Short eg+ worldwide General Manager
Teo Ren Jie eg+ worldwide Photographer
Peter Ng eg+ worldwide Head of Production
Jean Abideen eg+ worldwide Art Buyer
Andrew Yeoh eg+ worldwide Studio Manager
Fione Wong eg+ worldwide FA Artist
Edward Cryer Freelancer Post-production
Jonathan Mildenhall Airbnb Chief Marketing Officer
Matthias Schuecking Airbnb APAC Head of Marketing
Pepe Torres Airbnb APAC Regional Brand Marketing Manager
Cassandra Leong Airbnb Field Marketing and Partnerships

The Brief

Café culture is a big part of Singapore's lifestyle. Locals spend hours relaxing in air-conditioned comfort, which is why many cafes don't just serve up food and refreshments but feature bookshelves stacked with magazines and books too. We saw this as the perfect opportunity to directly reach a young, savvy and well-travelled audience in a completely unobtrusive manner. So we turned Airbnb listings into bookmarks. We then inserted them into travel and storybooks that were most relevant to our listings in the different cafes. These bookmarks were picked up directly by these savvy travelers. 'The books they'd like to live in' quickly touched a chord with one of Airbnb's key demographics.

Creative Execution

We had created different types of bookmarks - each specific to a popular outbound destination for Singaporeans. Each of the bookmarks, had included 2 whimsical listings which were available for that destination along with a link and a QR code to a wish list which featured popular homes for this specific campaign. Selecting the perfect cafes was key to the success of this campaign. We combed Singapore to not only find cafes where our audience hung-out but also offered the kinds of books that they read. We then flipped through hundreds of pages to find a part of the narrative that matched perfectly with our Airbnb listings' bookmarks. The more descriptive the passage of text the better, because we knew that in the reader's mind's eye they were already there.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Singaporeans are among the most well travelled people on the planet. Those in their 20-40s – a key Airbnb demographic – see travel as a form of self-expression and personal enrichment. This audience is driving the island's café culture, so inserting bookmarks of Airbnb listings in books was a great way to reach them. While they're reading a book that features a country or city that's top-of-mind, we're reminding them that Airbnb has a great choice of homes to stay in there too. It was a perfect marriage of media for these savvy travellers and voracious readers of literature.

Results

From guidebooks to storybooks, the bookmarks campaign has burst into the consciousness of Singaporeans in a completely unexpected way. By bridging key social and recreational activities – the island's growing café culture and Singaporeans love of books and travel – we've touched the hearts of travellers looking for new adventures. The campaign has continued to build momentum and is driving social chatter online. Prompted by our listings bookmarks, Singaporeans are clicking on Airbnb and booking the homes they'd like to live in. So they can then experience the life they've just read about. It was the perfect media placement for our audience.