Brief Explanation

Crafted by a team of dedicated model makers and designers, this spot for Airbnb takes the viewer on a train ride through a miniature world to show that when using Airbnb's services, travellers make the world a little bit smaller for themselves.

Creative Execution

Over five weeks, 30 model-makers built an 852 sq.ft. landscape with 60 hand-made houses inspired by real listings and 96 figurines – including six miniatures of real Airbnb guests. Our camera was mounted onto a model train and everything was shot in-camera without any computer-generated imagery. Most importantly, by replacing in-camera projections with Asian language translations we reached viewers in markets such as China, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong, our most important educational targets. A key insight which we derived was that when you travel, the world around you feels smaller. When you are part of the Airbnb community, that feeling grows even stronger because you meet people at a local level in their own boroughs and neighbourhoods. The message that we wanted to bring across was to explain the Airbnb brand and product: Belonging anywhere and experiencing travel in a different and richer way is only a few clicks away. Right from the beginning, the film was intended only for digital channels; thus, the only assets created were the 60-second main film and a 2-minute ‘Behind the Scenes’. In order to keep within the limited budgets across our key markets, we used a multi-channel approach that involved paid, owned and earned media. In terms of paid media, we focused on an approach that ensures both quantity and quality of views. The film was 60 seconds long; thus, to get as many eyeballs as possible watching the film, we partnered with Unruly, an expert in long form content to distribute and seed the film. We also partnered with Youtube, the largest video network and bought Trueviews (non-skippable ad format). These guaranteed views helped to maximize exposure and contribute to the campaign’s successful results. As for owned Media, the film was uploaded onto Airbnb's owned media channels such as Youtube and Youku resulting in close to 10 million views.