Post by High Priestess on Dec 3, 2017 15:55:18 GMT
A woman writes about the changes in Airbnb:
"How I fell out of love with Airbnb" -- a woman writes about the changes in the company:
quartzy.qz.com/1132556/how-i-fell-out-of-love-with-airbnb/
In many ways, apparently, Airbnb is not what it once was. We saw that on November 29th when Brian Chesky did a host Q&A and pretty much refused to answer every single question put to him, skirting them all and using the time to do advertising instead.
From the article:
"How I fell out of love with Airbnb" -- a woman writes about the changes in the company:
quartzy.qz.com/1132556/how-i-fell-out-of-love-with-airbnb/
In many ways, apparently, Airbnb is not what it once was. We saw that on November 29th when Brian Chesky did a host Q&A and pretty much refused to answer every single question put to him, skirting them all and using the time to do advertising instead.
From the article:
"The cost-cutting measure of firing 50 full-time employees and 100 contractors involved in the company’s much-loved food service operation—which was often described to new hires as emblematic of the company’s “be a host” value system—prompted an outcry among company employees."
"It isn’t just a macro shift in politics that has complicated Airbnb’s brand; there’s an actual, quantifiable backlash, too. The company has been blamed for everything from declining populations in central Paris to putting immigrant enclaves like Berlin’s Neukölln and Kreuzberg on the fast track to unchecked gentrification through the rise of “Airbnb clusters.” The Hotel Association of New York City recently put out an ad connecting the company with the disgraced Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who’s been accused of putting his New York City condo on Airbnb as part of a money laundering scheme. "
According to Andy Cunningham, a Silicon Valley marketing and brand strategist, the reason my feelings have changed about this brand I once loved is at least in part because they failed to update their narrative.
“Airbnb developed a really great brand strategy early on when they were able to gain a foothold. It was so great that they don’t know how to evolve it as the world changes around them,” Cunningham told me. “When you are one of the forces that is changing the world, like Airbnb, you have an even bigger responsibility to adjust your narrative going forward. Instead, they keep introducing new products, without shifting the narrative of how that connects to the company at all (or to the hosts!).”
“Airbnb developed a really great brand strategy early on when they were able to gain a foothold. It was so great that they don’t know how to evolve it as the world changes around them,” Cunningham told me. “When you are one of the forces that is changing the world, like Airbnb, you have an even bigger responsibility to adjust your narrative going forward. Instead, they keep introducing new products, without shifting the narrative of how that connects to the company at all (or to the hosts!).”
But with its co-hosting feature, Airbnb even offers hosts a way to circumvent what was once the whole appeal of it —interacting with their guests—by paying for someone to do it for them.
In a sense, the whole platform has started to feel less like a tool to plan the kind of trip that I want to have, and more like a travel company that wants to plan my entire trip for me—and make money off it at every step in the process.
In a sense, the whole platform has started to feel less like a tool to plan the kind of trip that I want to have, and more like a travel company that wants to plan my entire trip for me—and make money off it at every step in the process.