On Airbnb’s third-quarter earnings call last month, co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky called his company “the most adaptable business model in all of travel.”

See all of Ad Age's 2022 Marketers of the Year here.

The statement sums up a key reason that Airbnb has been successful this year in transforming the function it offers consumers planning travel.

The San Francisco-based company saw 29% growth in year-over-year revenue in the third quarter of 2022 ($2.9 billion)—which was also its most profitable quarter on record. Net income grew 50% year-over-year to $1.2 billion, fueled by higher interest in long-term and non-urban travel thanks to the flexibility of working from home.

Growth aside, these preferences, along with heightened demand for trying new destinations, have inspired Airbnb to become the first stop along consumers’ travel-planning journeys. In the past, Airbnb has typically served as the third step of the journey—namely, finding a place to stay after travelers decided on their destination and booked their mode of transport. 

But new features rolled out this year, backed by multiple marketing campaigns, position Airbnb as a platform for vacation discovery. The new direction resembles a shopping-like experience, said Bernie McTernan, senior analyst of internet and consumer technology for brokerage Needham & Company.

“Even though travel is changing, Airbnb is benefiting from that changing more than other platforms,” McTernan said.

‘A new Airbnb for a new world of travel’

In May, Airbnb launched Categories, a tool that distinguishes types of destinations by 56 different criteria, including style, design and nearby activities. The release was billed as “A new Airbnb for a new world of travel,” as well as the company’s biggest change in a decade.

Airbnb understands Categories goes against the grain of how people have typically searched for vacations by relying on travel sites such as Expedia or TripAdvisor. “This is going to take some retraining for everything to go from step three to step one,” Chesky said in the third-quarter earnings call. 

Marketing has thus played a key role in showing consumers what’s now possible on the platform. Soon after the launch of Categories, Airbnb rolled out a campaign that highlighted various vacation scenarios, such as camping and staying in a castle. Each offering was depicted in a 30-second spot that ran on national TV, as well as streaming services and digital and social channels. Created in-house, with media duties handled by Essence Global, the ads emphasized memory-making through real photographs from Airbnb customers and emotive music.

The marketing push has already raised significant awareness for Categories, which has been used more than 300 million times since launch. Listings were also up 15% year-over-year in the third quarter, suggesting that Categories could be an effective driver of supply to the platform. If Airbnb wants to take control of the travel industry, building supply is crucial, McTernan said.

“It’s not just about consumer adoption, it’s also about supply growing. … And I think that’s one of the reasons why they’re spending their marketing dollars where they are,” McTernan said.

When the economy gets tough …

Airbnb’s latest display of adaptability has come in response to gloomy economic forecasts. Downturns in global markets have spurred fears of recession, which makes vacationing a less practical activity. 

And so, Airbnb has also been focusing on hosting as a means of supplementing income. The platform’s winter rollout highlights new features that streamline the process of hosting, such as new listing tools through Airbnb Setup and a protection program called AirCover.

A marketing campaign launched in November to support these features with ads that show how easy it is to convert your home into an Airbnb. The campaign is running on social and digital channels, as well as some streaming TV platforms, and will be much more targeted than previous efforts, Hiroki Asai, Airbnb’s global head of marketing, told Ad Age last month.

Once again, the campaign was developed in-house, with Essence Global managing media duties. This approach allows the marketing team to sit arm and arm with product design, Asai said, resulting in the delivery of a consistent message with a consistent voice. 

He also mentioned how Airbnb is leaning further into using its name as a verb (e.g., “Airbnb your home”), citing that natural tendency among consumers. (Massively popular platforms such as Google and Uber have benefited greatly from their names doubling as verbs.)

The recent shift in marketing focus is a flashback to 2008, when Airbnb emphasized hosting at the onset of the Great Recession. That was also the year that Airbnb officially launched, suggesting that it remembered an early lesson it was forced to learn about the value of being versatile. 

“These are the right steps they need to keep driving more supply to the platform, which, again, is a key for this whole story to work,” McTernan said.

See all of Ad Age's 2022 Marketers of the Year here.