Essence to host Airbnb media in global review

Airbnb. Poster-child of a modern business and brand. Not without its challenges, but who wouldn’t want to work with them?

This was an opportunity for media agencies to prove themselves worthy across three regions comprising The Americas, APAC and EMEA. Up for grabs was the chance to win in any one or all of the regions.

Added to this challenge was the brand team’s desire to consider worthy domestic agencies in the core markets of UK & North America, with the potential to separate these from the regional play. All with a parallel commercial, contractual and operational pitch brief feeding into Airbnb’s Head of Deal Operations.

Complex and challenging: just our kind of brief!

There were two standout elements to our consultancy. First, brand team interviews and workshops to ensure alignment on the brief, their expectations and what success could look like. Then a pitch programme heavy on interaction and engagement between prospective agencies and the regional Airbnb teams, involving market sprints (brief on Monday, response on Thursday), Airbnb experiences with the brand and agency teams and a big strategic challenge in which the agencies strategic Jedi Knight could shine. Essence proved themselves to be a Superhost and were awarded the business across all three territories.

Geoff Seeley, Global Head of Marketing, had this to say about the review and the benefits of working with AAR:

“Here’s why I think you’ll get to a better place with AAR’s support…they have a skill in crystallising and simplifying the challenge, then they make sure you stay focussed on meeting that challenge across all areas of their counsel. They’ll help you make better decisions that will deliver better results. And it will be an enjoyable experience for everyone involved.”