Airbnb’s robust social community guaranteed reach wouldn’t be a problem. Our challenge was to convince the audience of the project’s significance. To overcome this obstacle, we elected to use paid media, but instead of just buying ads, we placed our limited budget solely with one cable television network, the Sundance Channel, (an extremely influential independent film channel). And together developed a unique partnership. Together, in combination with our PR and social outreach, we announced the project using Sundance Channel’s social outlets (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), newsletter, online display and pre-teaser spots encouraging their highly active film fans to take part in the project. Second, we negotiated and ran a four-minute commercial in prime time on the Sundance Channel debuting the film itself. This highly unusual long-format debut gave the program instant credibility, as the hundreds of people who participated could instantly claim that “they got their film on Sundance.”

In the end, 750 videos from nine countries were submitted, and 100 were selected to create the final film. It also gained over 325,000 views on YouTube and was featured as a short film on the Sundance Channel during prime time. The work positioned Airbnb’s brand to be perceived as just as forward-thinking and original as the target audience themselves.