Partner Co-Marketing: Airbnb's Masterstroke

How effective could partner co-marketing be? Well, here is a case study of a fun campaign that generated Airbnb more than 🏆 2X (twice) the press coverage as their own IPO, one of the top IPOs of the last years. Here's how:

AirBnB’s single campaign in partnerships with Warner Bros. and Mattel, Inc. delivered a stunning result:

250 million social media impressions

13,000 press hits

💬 Brian Chesky, Co-Founder and CEO, explained:

“Airbnb is known for one-of-a-kind listings. As I'm sure you know, the "Barbie" movie just came out in theaters. In celebration of the premiere, we partnered with Warner Bros. and Mattel to transform a home into the Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse.

We launched it as part of our 'Only on Airbnb' campaign. 'Only on Airbnb' taps into global pop culture moments, inspiring guests with some of the most iconic homes in the world.

The Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse has been a sensation, and it is now Airbnb's most popular listing ever. We saw 13,000 press hits and more than 250 million social media impressions since it was announced.

And to give you a sense of how much that is, that's twice -- more than twice as many presses as were generated from our IPO.”

🔥 Partner co-marketing sometimes has a bad reputation, because it can be overused. But when done right, it can surpass even the most optimistic expectations. It's about authentic collaboration, innovation, and understanding the shared audience.

Here are 3 principles that can help to leverage partnership marketing well:

💜 The collaboration should feel natural and integrated, not forced.

Partners need to have complementary values and audiences for a partnership to be perceived as authentic and resonate with the part of their audiences that overlap.

🗽 Aim for innovative partnerships

Collaboration should create unique value and excitement that couldn’t be achieved by either brand alone, thus standing out in the market.

🎯 Measure and turn successes into playbooks:

After this co-marketing campaign created Airbnb's most popular listing ever, they're turning the “Only on Airbnb” campaign into a playbook. Its CEO said:

“Only on Airbnb campaigns are an effective way to introduce Airbnb and our unique inventory to new guests, and they'll be an important part of our playbook going forward.”

Similar famous co-marketing campaigns:

Samsung Electronics and Fortnite

Samsung partnered with the popular game to offer an exclusive in-game skin for those who purchased the new Samsung Galaxy phone.

It drove sales for Samsung, increased Fortnite's downloads on Android, and created massive social media engagement.

Spotify and Uber – “Music for Your Uber Ride"

Allowed Uber riders to play their Spotify playlists during rides. Led to a lot of positive PR and showed a unique value proposition for both companies, not to mention better customer experience.

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