Airbnb Australia Policy Media

We called Mary the “Beyoncé” of Sydney because her video was so popular.

The Situation

In the Spring of 2017, lawmakers in New South Wales, Australia (home to Sydney, one of Airbnb’s biggest markets) were considering introducing new regulations on Short Term Rentals. We had only six weeks to influence them to consider fair rules that would allow our community to flourish while instilling sensible regulations around safety and tax collection.

My Role

I got to fly to Sydney to direct our whirlwind three-day shoot. Based on polling, we determined our most powerful community stories revolved around seniors and Strata (condo) hosts. We partnered with Deloitte to run an economic impact report to show how much money home sharing brings to New South Wales. The stories and the data provided the basis for our campaign.

Our community organizers did an amazing job finding 4 hosts whose stories really exemplified the benefits of home sharing for regular Sydneysiders and travelers alike. I will never forget spending time with Mary, a lovely retired widow who uses home sharing to supplement her retirement and meet new friends. I also got to be an extra with Christiane, pretending to be her guest as we walked down the beautiful beach at Manly. Interviewing Airbnb hosts was always my favorite part of the job.

After we captured their stories, I worked closely with our production partner (Blunt Gorilla) to quickly transform hours of interviews into short and sweet TV commercials and radio ads. We used photos from the shoot to build out a full suite of digital ads placed on local news websites, print ads that ran in local newspapers, bus and subway billboards we placed in strategic locations (including Parliament station.)

In addition to our paid media, we also activated our host community to make their voices heard directly to the lawmakers were targeting. This email series also featured the films and photos captured during the shoot.

The Results

The lawmakers didn’t pass any recommendations (good or bad) in the spring session, but we laid a foundation for a positive working relationship. The content that we shot for the first wave was repurposed and supplemented in the next wave of paid media in the fall/winter. Eventually, positive recommendations were passed, but with a new government coming in, policy work is ongoing.