Cover Page
Airbnb Event Spaces – Marketing Brief for the CMO by new
CEO, Mark Tobin
Introduction
My first aim as CEO is focus our marketing operations across the company, specifically
within our new business units. Airbnb recently acquired a Danish company (Gaest.com), in
order to kick-start our venture into the meetings and events category. This is a small
operation based out of Aarhus in Denmark. Our intention is to leverage their product and
subject matter expertise to create a new marketplace for meetings and events on Airbnb. This
will be known as ‘Airbnb Event Spaces’. Initially, our focus will be narrow in scope, but
within the next 3 years, this will be a fully operational, global product offering. This is a
completely new venture for us and it is critical to our long-term success and is another step
towards fulfilling our mission of creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere.
Image courtesy of Airbnb
In order to for us to succeed in this new venture, I will outline my expectations for a
marketing plan for Airbnb Event Spaces. Below, I will give an overview of our current
situation, including a SWOT analysis. We have developed a simplified marketing model that
will help you pull together a comprehensive plan that we can bring for board approval at the
end of the month. It is integral that we utilise this model to help us drive consistency across
the organisation in our marketing efforts, especially as we continue to grow and explore new
categories on a regular basis. Details on the model and on how to use it will be found later in
this brief.
Firstly, and most importantly, I want to share the reason why building this plan is so
important. In today’s world, we are all marketeers. Everybody at Airbnb has an integral part
in our success in marketing. However, this perspective can also lead many to believe that
marketing is a simplistic endeavour and that being able to ‘market as you go’ is sufficient.
This is absolutely not the case. We need to be deliberate in our approach to planning. Our
plan should cover as many details as possible and should always be building towards the
future success of our business. Seth Godin puts it brilliantly in a 2012 blog post; “No one
ever bought anything on an elevator”. That is to say that a short pitch does not suffice to
show the potential of a product. Therefore, a considered, well prepared plan is required. The
planning process itself is a great time to reflect on ‘what has happened, what is happening,
and what might happen (Kotler, 1999). Too many people rush to the next problem, without
reflecting or understanding how they can best bring their experience to their next work.
Creating a marketing plan is also a crucial element in setting clear expectations with our
teams. Failing to set a clear plan will set a team up for failure, regardless of how good they
are. Kotler (1999) speaks of the importance of setting goals, communicating them and
measuring performance against them. This allows us to understand if our marketing plan is
effective and allows us the opportunity to take corrective action. Particularly in this VUCA
environment, it is equally important to review a plan, as it is to create on in the first place. As
CMO, I expect that you will work to ensure that our plan evolves with the needs of our
customers.
Simplified Marketing Model
Here you will see a simplified visual representation of our marketing model. Hopefully this
visual aid help you understand our thinking and the process that goes into our planning. In
short, planning is just the beginning. Once the control elements are in place, we will use the
information that they provide us to tweak the plan and ensure that we continue to focus on
providing value for our customers. Planning is a living process that I expect you to own
throughout your tenure at Airbnb.
Situation Analysis
In order to build an effective market plan, I will share an overview of the current Airbnb
Event Space business, including competitor analysis. As this is a new area of business for
Airbnb, there is not a lot of relevant historic information. We do have access to the
information that was gathered by the Gaest.com team but we will need to take into account
the positive impact that the Airbnb brand brings to the product. Gaest.com was operating at a
small loss for the 4 years up until it was acquired by Airbnb.
Airbnb estimates that there are over 10 thousand events per week being booked on the
traditional Homes platform which represents an insignificant proportion of the global
meetings and events Market share. For context, in the US, corporate meetings and workshop
space rentals represent over $20B in spending. We estimate global spending in this category
to be over $80B. At the moment, we are not a significant player in this category but the
business is rife for innovation.
Furthermore, our product will be targeted at corporate meeting bookers, professional
meetings, social events and eventually, multi-day events. Our marketplace will have
something for everyone; the one-person meeting room to the dream wedding venue.
Our intention is to charge a slightly higher host fee than our competitors, but we are confident
in this price as we offering comprehensive insurance solutions for our hosts and guests and
unlike our competitors, we will handle all financial transactions for our hosts and guests.
The competitive landscape is quite interesting. Some of our competitors include Breather,
HeadBox, Meetingsbooker, Peerspace, Splacer, #tagvenue and VenueScanner. The
competitive landscape is largely homogenous and uninspired. We can set ourselves apart by
focusing on a high standard of quality and keeping humans at the centre of our events.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
1. Worldwide userbase of over 700 million active users, many of whom organise social
events on a regular basis.
2. We already have strategic account relationships with some of the world’s largest
companies (Google, Facebook, Accenture) through our Business Travel program.
These companies are an ideal target for our product.
3. We are building a product to fit the needs of event bookers. Our aim is that we will
bring so much business to new event hosts that we will become the de facto service
provider.
Weaknesses
1. We have a small team and have been highly dependent on the experience of the
former Gaest.com team in order to design the best product we could.
2. Our existing Community Support teams are unfamiliar with servicing meeting and
events. We have invested in training but there is still room to learn.
3. We have limited data on historic performance of events on Airbnb as we did not
capture this information effectively.
Opportunities
1. Enormous market potential. Conservative estimates have corporate meetings and
event spend at over $80B. Our product will offer an even greater diversity of options.
2. The competitive landscape is uninspired and feels heavily commoditised. This
industry is rife for innovation, in a similar vein to home-sharing was in 2010.
3. Create another profitable business segment to further diversify Airbnb’s revenue
streams.
Threats
1. Several new players have recently joined the competitive landscape (LinkedIn,
Booking.com) and they could disrupt the industry while we are building something
new.
2. Airbnb is currently engaging in policy negotiations in many of our largest markets in
relation to home-sharing. They may be hesitant to partner with us on this new
category while we are still discussing other challenges.
3. We are moving quickly towards an IPO. External factors may impact our ability to
invest heavily in new businesses, if we do not quickly demonstrate growth.
4. There recent tragic events in Orinda, CA (Bunyan, 2019) at an Airbnb may impact the
external view of this product offering.
In summary, the opportunity size far outweighs the risk. As well as being a significant
revenue generation opportunity, it also supports the company’s mission. The above are my
perspective in relation to SWOT. As CMO, please feel empowered to add or amend any of
the above for the purpose of your marketing plan.
Marketing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
In order to ensure we can measure our performance against this work, it is crucial that we set
some OKRs that we can work towards. Our main objective for 2020 is to launch Airbnb
Event Spaces in 3 European markets (London, Paris and Amsterdam). The key results that
will enable that are:
1. Onboard 100 event spaces in each city
2. Prepare local market material for each city
3. Complete 100 events in Q1 2020
Establishing OKRs will allow us to focus our teams towards the activities that will have the
most impact. As CMO, I expect that you add relevant OKRs that will help you drive success
in achieving our main objective.
Marketing Strategy
Now that there is a clear understanding of our Event Spaces business, it is crucial that you
can use this information to enhance your marketing plan. The first step required is to identify
our target markets. This new business should be targeted to those customers that would
perceive the most value from the offering.
Our key market segments have been identified through our research efforts. The first segment
is registered business travel users located in London, Paris and Amsterdam. Our research
shows that over 50% of business travellers have planned an event for up to 30 people in the
last 12 months. As CMO, I would like you to decide how to target these segments across our
three key markets.
The next key action required is to develop specific strategies for each section of the
marketing mix:

Product: our product has been built to offer an end-to-end booking service for event
bookers. Airbnb Event Spaces will be the best customer experience in regards to
booking an event in London, Paris and Amsterdam in 2020

Price: As Airbnb Event Spaces is a platform, we will not set the final price for the
booker. However, we will ensure a diversity of supply across the spectrum of value.
The key selling point for this product is that there will be no service fees charged to
the booker.

Place: Our product will be based in London, Paris and Amsterdam but bookers from
all over the planet will be able to book events there. We will focus on the local
markets at first, as our research indicates that this will account for the vast majority of
our bookings.

Promotion: As CMO, you will be responsible for delivering a successful launch of
this product through whatever marketing means you can demonstrate to be most
effective. Please detail your recommendations in your plan and include them in your
budget request.

Packaging: Our booking experience will be second to none. The design elements of
the product will guide our bookers through the booking process. Everything on our
product will be built with the customer in mind.

Process: The buying experience on our website and app will be a joy. It will be clear
to the booker what they are buying and they will know how to ask for help if they
need it.

Physical Evidence: Airbnb will rely on our community to build a wealth of reviews
on our platform. The initial Spaces will have the stamp of approval from our sales
team but ultimately, an Event Space will be validated by our users. There is no
greater evidence, than the experience of another booker.
It is paramount that your plan allows us to showcase our product in the best way, in order for
us to maximise the likelihood of us succeeding in this new marketplace. In your plan, please
include a detailed action plan that will help us make this product a success, with particular
focus to each of these elements of the marketing mix.
Marketing Budget and Control
Two more key elements to your plan are you budget request and the control measures you
will put in place to measure performance against our goals. Firstly, please submit a thorough
budget as part of your marketing plan. As this is a new area of our business, I am happy to
invest heavily in marketing, but I want to ensure that we can justify the spending to our
board. Secondly, we must have effect marketing controls within our business. Ideally, you
will build a clear marketing scorecard that shows performance against our OKRs and our
marketing spend. This should be simple, easy to understand and clearly show where our
focus needs to be. Please see example below:
Image courtesy of Dawkins, J. (2018) Trew Marketing
Another critical element to marketing control is setting the right frequency to review
performance and to review the plan. As this is a new product, I would suggest we meet
frequently to discuss performance to ensure we are resourcing this product sufficiently and
that we are prioritising the right activities. Please set up a monthly business review where we
can discuss ongoing activities and make key decisions in relation to our marketing activity.
Closing Thoughts
As you can see from the details above, your marketing plan is critical to the success of this
new product launch. At each step of our journey, we must continue to evolve our plans and
remind ourselves who we are building this product for; our customers.
Building a plan that conveys that we are building a meetings and events platform that is
centred around delivering a world-class experience for our customers will differentiate us
from our competitors. A successful 2020 will allow us to expand our horizons and to build a
platform that brings passion and humanity back to both event planning and the events
themselves.
In our ever-changing digital world, where there are more ways to connect than ever before,
people have never felt more alone. We are building an aspirational product that connects
people and brings intimacy to our work and social lives.
References:
Bunyan, R., Bates, J., Carlisle, M. (2019) ‘5 Killed, Several Injured in Shooting at Airbnb
Halloween Party in California. Here's What to Know’, Time Magazine. Available at:
https://time.com/5716078/orinda-shooting-halloween/ (Accessed: 8 December 2019)
Dawkins, J. (2019) ‘What to Include on Your Marketing Scorecard’ Available at:
https://www.trewmarketing.com/smartmarketingblog/what-to-include-on-your-marketingscorecard (Accessed: 8 December 2019)
Godin, S. (2012) ‘No one ever bought anything on an elevator’, Seth’s Blog, 22 Oct.
Available at: https://seths.blog/2012/10/no-one-ever-bought-anything-on-an-elevator/
(Accessed: 8 December 2019)
Kotler, P. (1999) Kotler on Marketing. The Free Press.