(The Airbnb Experiment That Accidentally Became a Masterclass in Brand Building)
It started as a campaign that wasn’t even meant to sell anything.
Just a bunch of heartfelt letters… from hosts to guests.
But within 6 months — it rebuilt trust in an entire industry.
They weren’t short on users — they were short on trust.
People were still skeptical about staying in strangers’ homes.
No matter how many “discount ads” or “vacation clips” they showed, it didn’t fix that.
So, the team tried something else.
They stopped making product ads — and made human ones.
“What if,” someone asked, “We told just one kind of story — real stories — and built the brand only on that?”
No new fancy visuals.
No holiday campaigns.
No holiday campaigns.
No holiday campaigns.
No holiday campaigns.
These weren’t ads about “how nice the home looks.”
They were about belonging.
One host wrote:
“I never knew I’d make friends from six countries in my own living room.”
Another said:
“Every guest reminds me the world isn’t as scary as the news says.”
It was personal. Emotional.
And it hit something that no “Book Now” button ever could.
That single emotional format did what hundreds of creative variations couldn’t —
It changed how people felt about Airbnb.
Searches spiked. Signups climbed.
But most importantly — trust was rebuilt.
Because when people saw the same type of story again and again,
It didn’t feel like repetition.
It felt like identity.
Drop the “corporate-approved” tone.
Add tension. Let your message breathe, stumble, or laugh.
Speak like someone who’s alive, not like a brand trying to sound wise.
Keep your visuals cinematic, but your tone raw.
To make people trust you need to show the face not the text,
Sometimes the real creative genius isn’t variety.
It’s restraint.
Airbnb didn’t create more ads.
They just created one kind of feeling — and repeated it until it became their brand.
But there is one thing that I find amusing, like what would be the revenue they generated from one ad?
Like if I run the same ad in an ecommerce niche how much revenue will just 1 ad generate.
And for this we launched the ad that night…