When Airbnb listed the Barbie Dreamhouse on its platform last summer, it attracted more than 13,000 press hits and more than 250 million social media impressions. CEO Brian Chesky said on an earnings call that it got more than twice as many impressions as the company’s IPO announcement.
Today, Airbnb makes its ties to pop culture official by launching a new permanent feature called Icons. It goes live today with 11 experiences, with more to be added throughout the year.
Starting today, you can book stays in places like the house from Disney’s Pixar’s Up, or a 2D animated re-creation of Marvel Animation’s X-Mansion from X-Men ’97. Or, perhaps Prince’s Purple Rain house in Minneapolis, featured in the 1984 film, is more your speed. There’s also the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, and the Ferrari Museum in Italy. Oh, and special listings from celebs including Doja Cat, Kevin Hart, Khaby Lame, and Bollywood star Janhvi Kapoor.
Airbnb’s head of global marketing Hiroki Asai says Icons is meant to keep Airbnb’s ties to pop culture strong. “We really see Icons as a really big step toward the future of Airbnb,” Asai tells Fast Company. “It keeps Airbnb at the pulse of culture. From a marketing perspective, it really allows us to reach new segments of people, new demographics, and most importantly, new geographies.”
Icons is now its own category right on the Airbnb homepage. Most Icons are free, and all are priced under $100 per guest. Each Icon opportunity has a countdown for when the listing goes live, and guests can request to book through the app. Guests are then picked from a draw, and those picked get a digital golden ticket. More than 4,000 tickets will be available in 2024.
Pop culture tourism
Since 2019, Airbnb has listed 90 different spaces that have direct ties to culture. In 2023 alone, the company had the Barbie Dreamhouse, Shrek’s Swamphouse, and a collab with Seth Rogen’s Houseplant.
Though Airbnb isn’t using its Icons experiences as a way to directly drum up revenue through booking fees, Asai says that these led to more than 4.7 million visits to Airbnb’s platform, and a slew of positive press coverage. The company learned some valuable lessons, from the Barbie experience specifically, that ultimately led to the creation of Icons.
“It was a big unlock,” says Asai. “To give people who are passionate about the movie and what it stood for, the chance to participate even more. When we saw how people loved . . . not just the stay, but the experience, that’s when we realized there’s more here.”
Brand quid pro quo
Last year, I wrote that Airbnb could become a new media platform for brands to cocreate experiences aimed at the platform’s 150 million worldwide users.
Airbnb certainly benefits from these collaborations. Last year, Chesky called PR the company’s “most important” marketing channel, saying that nearly 90% of the platform’s traffic remains direct. This push into celebrity- and brand-related collabs is one way for Airbnb to use the PR and earned media around these listings to reinforce people’s overall trust in its platform.
For brands such as Disney and Ferrari, as well as any celebs, Icons becomes an experiential marketing play to a captive and enthusiastic audience.
Asai wouldn’t comment on financial details between Airbnb and the brands and companies it works with on these experiences. He did say that Airbnb is the one creating the experiences—from renovating the Prince Estate’s Purple Rain house to constructing the elevating Up house (complete with 8,000 balloons) and building an apartment behind the Musee d’Orsay’s clock tower.
“What I think Disney gets out of it, is they’re able to reengage with their fans and great stories, or great new stories that they have releasing,” says Asai. “And what we get out of it is playing a role and helping people participate in that way that’s true and honest.”
Unlike Airbnb’s past experiences, Icons aren’t pop-ups or one-offs; they will be a built-in feature of the platform going forward. “What we love about this is that it helps people to understand that Airbnb is more than just about a listing,” says Asai. “Icons are really one of the first step toward how we want people to think about Airbnb and where Airbnb is going.”
Airbnb wants to expand the way people think about the platform beyond simply booking a room or a home. It might sound cliché, but the brand wants to be all about the idea of having an experience. By integrating its most common product with more blockbuster entertainment and cultural experiences, Airbnb is clearly hoping the brand equity it’s tapping into with these partners can help boost its own brand to new heights. Maybe even make it iconic.
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