Marketers need to be fearless
By Katie Richards
When Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky approached Jonathan
Mildenhall about taking on the CMO role at Airbnb 18 months ago,
Mildenhall said he was a bit skeptical. He was, after all, working with
one of the greatest storytellers and one of the most visible brands in
the world—Coca-Cola.
"Our vision for Airbnb isn't just ambitious. It's historic. We want to
be the next global super brand," Chesky told Mildenhall when the two
first met. With that, the Coke exec was sold.
Joining the Airbnb team meant that Mildenhall would have the chance to
take a new brand and build it from the ground up. Speaking at the
National Advertisers Masters of Marketing Annual Conference in Orlando,
Airbnb's CMO shared his strategy and some challenges he's faced on the
road to building a super brand that now operates in over 190 countries
and more than 34,000 cities.
In his new role, Mildenhall said he knew he needed to look to some of
the leading brands in the world, citing Apple, Starbucks, Nike, Disney
and Virgin as sources of inspiration. But copying these leaders wouldn't
do a startup like Airbnb any good. "We couldn't use anyone else's
playbook. We had to create our own," Mildenhall said.
Airbnb had an inherently unique and difficult challenge in that the
idea of staying in a stranger's home, or allowing a stranger to stay in
your home, is scary. What if someone steals your jewelry, harms you,
provides you with dirty accommodations? These serious questions spurred
Mildenhall's marketing strategy.
That led to the brand's very first international TV campaign, "Never a
Stranger." For the spot, the CMO said he deliberately cast a single
white female who wants to travel the world alone as the lead.
