The Campaign

As you travel away from popular tourist attractions, you’ll discover a different side to the city. You’ll find opportunities to interact with locals and live just like one. We decided to tell this story through the journey of a solo female traveler in Paris. She travels away from the touristy spot of the Eiffel Tower, and with suggestions from her local host, discovers a different side to Paris, filled with locals and local favourites. Her memories of Paris are seen through an animated world set entirely on a Zoetrope. Measuring 3.8 meters in diameter, 11.9 meters in circumference, 1.5 meters in height, the 3D zoetrope was a first-of-its-kind build with 11,256 moving parts. All of the environments on the zoetrope were inspired from local Parisian hideaways. Each character, table, chair, were hand painted with immaculate attention to detail. We wanted to create a world that’s whimsical but also feels real.

Creative Execution

The zoetrope was built within a period of 3 weeks. With 11,256 moving parts, it took a 16-member crew of specialty craftsmen and women a total of 2,340 hours to assemble. Another 648 hours painting the 1,680 3D figurines and other elements of the Zoetrope. MATERIALS USED: • 10kg of Urethane plastic for figurines, tables, chairs • 2 liters of paint for the models • 16x spray paint for the Zoetrope world • 12x Spray Glue and 1 liter of Super glue • 6 liters of Primer to add details • 84 meters of electrical wiring to get the Zoetrope spinning • 30 meters of strip LEDs lit up the Zoetrope The environments were inspired from real Parisian hideaways and were hand painted for authenticity. They were populated using 3D printed figurines and a whole lot of glue.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

• View-through rate (VTR) o Target: 40% o Results: 76.21% (2x of target achieved; increasing our return on investment (ROI) with cost-per-view (CPV) 200% lower than previous Airbnb campaign (From $0.03 to $0.01), by delivering a total of 273,052,520 completed views. • Brand mentions o Target: A sizeable lift during campaign period, based on the average number of brand mentions per week across 6 months in the same year o Results: • China: +15.7% • Japan: +8.4% • South Korea: +18.8% • Click-through rate (CTR) o Target: 0.17% o Result: 0.66% (4x target achieved, 4.5x increase from industry benchmark) • Search Intent o Target: Evident peaks during campaign period, benchmarked against average number across entire year o Results: Japan: Peaked once at 100 (+88.7%) Korea: Peaked once at 80 (+21.2%) China: Peaked twice at 15,300 (+1422.4%) and 13,490 (+1242.2%)

We aimed to speak to a segment of millennial travellers - “Identity Voyagers”, who are eager to seek authentic and personal experiences, allowing them to feel inspired and rediscover themselves. Travel, to them, is an ultimate form of self-expression and personal enrichment as it offers both social validation and the promise of finding deeper meaning in their lives. Airbnb fights against conventional travel, where people visit popular tourist attractions. We believe that Airbnb opens up opportunities to travel deeper and immerse oneself in local cultures. Our film, launched across online and social media channels, spoke to our audience on platforms that are relevant to them and frequent. Sustenance spots that played across TV and in select cinemas followed further immersing our audience in our message. With this, we want our audience to understand what it is to live like a local and gain a deeper understanding of local experiences.