The marketing engine you inherited is fifteen years old, basically a television marketing machine. Becca asked you to pop the hood and rebuild it for social.

The team currently looks down on social. Part of your job is to prove that craft and quality have changed, and that what the consumer wants is different from what the team expects.

Everything is social media. It's not a side department, it's everything. You need a partner whose engine was built that way from day one.

01
Local Favorites at scale, beyond LA
02
Sponsoring emerging creators on dream trips
03
Teaching hosts to market themselves
The engine

A content operating system, built for always-on social since 2013.

The infrastructure most big creative agencies don't have, because they were built for the campaign moment, not the long tail that follows it.

500+
Vetted elite creators
A trained, briefed, owned network of operators across cinematic, editorial, and platform-native craft. Not a marketplace, a roster.
70+
Markets, on the ground
Creators are travelling now. Activate within 24-72 hours in nearly any country, with local nuance built in, not retrofitted.
24h
Concept to ready cut
From existing creator libraries. New-shoot territory at 72 hours. Big-shoot territory at five days. The brief shapes the speed.
DNA
Brand-book guardrails
Every brief encodes the brand identity. One-to-one matching at scale so output stays distinct, not samey.
Territory 01

Local Favorites, multiplied past LA.

"Could we use your network as a way to multiply that out? We know an up and coming place that people are going to travel is Poros in Greece. Like, go do a Local Favorite for Poros."

Eric, on the call

LA proves the format. The unlock is scaling neighbourhood-level real-locals storytelling into Tokyo, Rome, Poros, and the long tail of cities where the data tells you demand is forming.

BD's owned social audience plus the vetted creator network is a recruiting engine for real local voices. We've run this mechanic for our own creator pipeline and converted at scale.

01Airbnb-branded call on the BD channels: "We're looking for the people who know your neighbourhood."
02Application funnel, shortlist, brief, ship.
03Co-branded content on both audiences. Compounding discovery on each new market.
The offer

A two-market pilot (Tokyo plus Rome), scoped for 90 days. Locals scouted, briefed, shipped against the same look-and-feel direction your creative team approves once.

Neighbourhood street scene, illustrative
REFERENCE · CO-ACTIVATION FORMAT
Real locals, real neighbourhoods. Closest existing analogue to be swapped here by Jeremy.
Territory 02

Sponsor the next generation of travel storytellers.

"Find young people who don't have a huge scale yet, and basically sponsor a dream trip. Bet deep on someone early. A motorcycle through Argentina, they stay at Airbnbs along the way, it becomes a sponsored journey."

Eric, on the call

We've already built this engine. The Beautiful Destinations Academy, in partnership with the Government of Dubai, is the world's first creator and host academy.

A three-month residency, taught curriculum, paid stipends, practical applied skills in travel storytelling, marketing, and the business of tourism.

7,500
Applications
400
Shortlisted
30
Graduated
The offer

An Airbnb-branded creator residency: discover talent, sponsor real dream trips, host along the route, own the output. Recurring cohorts, recurring stories.

Asset · BD Academy
Hero graduate film + the no-passport story.
Jeremy to drop in the strongest BD Academy graduate edit (and a tile carrying the narrative of the kid who'd never held a passport before applying).
Territory 03 · The strategic one

Teach every host to market like a creator.

"You have all these experiences and homes hosts who are just fans of the brand. It's their business. They should learn how to market their own stuff. Why don't we teach them?"

Eric, on the call

The BD Academy curriculum lifts and shifts onto Airbnb's supply side. The same applied training that builds creators becomes the playbook hosts use to win demand on their listing.

This is the most defensible of the three pilots internally because it ladders into the marketplace economics, not just brand marketing. Better-marketed listings convert higher and earn Superhost status faster.

M1Storytelling foundations. What makes a stay scroll-stop.
M2Filming a home. Light, framing, sequencing on a phone.
M3Writing a listing. Voice, hooks, the first three lines.
M4Distribution. Where to post, when, and what to measure.
M5Hospitality storytelling. Turning a stay into a story guests tell forward.
The offer

A 50-host pilot in two markets, scoped for 90 days. Measure listing-page engagement and booking lift against a matched control. Scale to the Superhost cohort if the lift earns it.

Home interior reference
REFERENCE · BD ACADEMY CURRICULUM
Curriculum spread plus a before-and-after host transformation to be supplied by Jeremy.
Differentiation

Same engine. Different brand voices. Side-by-side proof.

You raised this on the call: travel brands looking samey, beautiful hotels that blend together. The DNA brand-book on each client's brief is what keeps the output distinct.

Luxury hotel reference
Marriott Bonvoy
Tone · Iconic

Cinematic, slow, full-frame. The brand-book leans on stillness and signature properties. Voice over silent footage.

Fast-paced lifestyle reference
Chase Travel · The Edit
Tone · Editorial

Glossy, fast, dense with information. The brand-book is about curation and authority. Voice runs through type, not narration.

Destination tourism reference
A destination ministry
Tone · Cultural

Local, textured, character-led. The brand-book is about people. Voice belongs to the residents.

Three of BD's live clients. Same creator network. Same operational pipeline. Three brand-books that resolve to three different worlds. Final cuts swapped in by Jeremy.

On AI

Real footage. Real places. AI only multiplies, never invents.

Your line: operational efficiency, not creative AI. We don't put AI content on the BD channel and we don't generate fake locations. We use AI to turn one real shoot into the eight to twelve platform-native variants modern social demands. Real cities, real homes, real hosts, just rendered for every feed.

Source
9:16 · v1
9:16 · v2
1:1 · v1
1:1 · v2
1:1 · v3
4:5 · v1
4:5 · v2
16:9 · v1
Where to start

A 90-day pilot, pick one territory.

Three territories on the table. The pilot that wins the strongest internal case for Becca's budget and your creative team's belief is the host one.

Recommended pilot

Host Marketing Academy. Two markets. Fifty hosts. Ninety days.

Hosts are Airbnb's supply side. Better-marketed listings are the cleanest possible lift to measure. The story compounds: hosts become creators, creators become storytellers, storytellers carry the brand.

What we build

The work

  • Five-module BD Academy curriculum, adapted for Airbnb hosts.
  • Live teaching from BD creator faculty plus Airbnb host operators.
  • One-to-one coaching on each host's listing storytelling.
  • Co-branded content produced from each host's market.
What we measure

The proof

  • Listing-page engagement lift (time, scroll depth, save rate).
  • Booking conversion vs matched control cohort.
  • Time-to-Superhost for first-cohort participants.
  • Earned share-of-voice in the two pilot cities on social.
What we learn

The thesis

  • Whether host-told storytelling outperforms agency-told.
  • Which curriculum modules carry the most lift.
  • The unit economics of a global rollout to Superhost.
  • Whether territories 01 and 02 slot in behind the host engine.

If this works, the other two territories slot in behind it. Local Favorites becomes the discovery layer. Sponsored dream trips become the brand layer. Hosts become the engine.