In early March Airbnb announced it would slash its spend in a permanent shift from performance marketing to brand.

In essence, something remarkable became apparent,  before they resumed their marketing spend traffic levels came back to 95% of the traffic levels of 2019 without any paid online investment. And what this revealed is that their brand is strong.

“We’re not going to forget that lesson.” Said Brian Chesky, co-founder and chief executive.

The company went on to announce a shift in strategy - it will no longer focus on performance spend but rather invest in brand. 

Recently launching their biggest brand campaign in five years, featuring Airbnb hosts, see some of the ads here. The creative is designed to “inspire more people” to rent out properties as the coronavirus lockdowns eased.

So what’s the out take?

While performance marketing is still an important lever it needs to make economic sense for a business. Performance marketing (done well) will drive additional traffic to a website, but don’t forget about the strength of your brand. If supported by excellent content and a robust communications strategy your brand will thrive and become strong.

If there’s one lesson the pandemic taught us, it’s that consumer’s media consumption has changed and pre-pandemic conventional media or marketing strategies should not be taken as a given, they should be reassessed to determine what can drive a business and its brand forward.

Full article found here

* performance marketing includes paid, Google ads, paid campaigns online including Facebook and Instagram - all online bidding and search marketing

My opinion only, feel free to share yours.