During the New York City marathon, Airbnb shined a spotlight on our NY hosts and the belonging they offer to travelers everyday. We celebrated and shared their incredible stories, insider information, unique hospitality, and local flavor through co-created content to humanize, normalize, and socialize hosting in New York.

The NYC host story was amplified to the world through our campaign hero, blind runner Simon Wheatcroft (from England) and his experience of belonging in NYC from start to finish. Simon lost his sight at 17 and began his journey to achieve the impossible. That journey reached new heights when he ran from Boston to New York and then he competed in the New York Marathon. Airbnb hosts empowered him and supporting him to belong each step of the way.

By partnering with an established and trusted NYC institution, New York Road Runners, we were able to build credibility, trust, and brand awareness through access to their fans and use of their marks. The New York Marathon generated global attention, international attendance, and massive local support (over 2 million attendees) on November 2nd. This event gave us unique access to position our brand as normal in NYC and introduce our brand to a “perfect mindset” tribe - global runners.

Our ultimate goal was for Airbnb to be celebrated in New York; for New Yorkers to understand Airbnb as normal and ubiquitous, that Airbnb hosts are good for the city of New York, and anyone can be a host.

We targeted both unaware New Yorker and marathon visitors, beginning with social content on October 6th, followed by television on October 20th and press amplification of our activities in the week after the marathon. These efforts both invited New Yorkers to join, and drove buzz about Simon's Story, as well as our role in the city and the marathon.

The campaign ran in local New York media including television and out of home, which helped us build a strategic presence along the race route with 200 placements across all 5 boroughs.

We engaged our community to support a bling marathon runner on his journey from Boston to New York -- over 40 complete strangers opened their homes to Simon.

We also took our most controversial property -- our logo -- and put it front and center by creating Beloman, a symbol of the value our hosts bring to travelers everyday.

* Supply Acquisition: 1,442 new host activations for the weeks prior and post the Marathon

* Community Engagement: 67,750 one-on-one conversations garnering deep engagement with the brand. Simon’s story inspired 40 new hosts to offer to host him, and thousands to follow his journey.

* Brand Sentiment: During marathon weekend we saw a 15% point lift in positive sentiment when compared to baseline NYC sentiment.

More Social/Engagement Results:

* 2,317 posts mentioned Airbnb and the NYC Marathon, giving us 2% share of overall NYC marathon conversation.

* #GoTheExtraMile was used 904 times, making it the 6th most used hashtag for NYC marathon posts on Twitter.

* Links to Mashable's "Airbnb is already a winner when it comes to the New YorkCity #Marathon," article were tweeted 357 times, making it the 6th most shared piece of content on Twitter related to the marathon.