1989
Last week, Brian Chesky, the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, did an interview in which he said only 20% of your marketing budget should go to performance dollars and Dean Phillips, the former CEO of Belvedere and Talenti, said Belvedere never paid for a celebrity endorsement.
What is this, 1989?
Probably doesn’t feel relevant the week before Holiday really kicks into gear, but, hey, what is this newsletter if not contrarian at the wrong times?
The combined thing to think about here is whether there might be alternative ways to grow outside of UGC-inspired (but highly inauthentic), hyper-targeted ads.
Chesky called performance marketing a “laser” that lights up a corner of a room and brand marketing a “chandelier” that lights the whole room. Phillips said Belvedere grew, in part, because of influencer seeding overlaid with national advertising campaigns directed at those individuals. (A very cool story starting at 8:11, here.)
It’s worth thinking about these stories, especially in light of the bemoaning that the monoculture is waning and the last of the megabrands have already been born.
To be fair, algorithm-based content feeds certainly have something to do with it.
But the other thing? Brands aren’t much trying to fight back. In fact, we’re leaning in to the feeds. How, then, could a brand reach stratospheric influence?
In part, we’re doing it to ourselves.
Airbnb may end up being the case study to do it differently.
Last quarter, they did $3.4B in revenue. Their nearest competitor in the space, VRBO, is rolled up into Expedia Group’s consumer unit. That entire unit, which includes Orbitz, Travelocity, etc, did $2.8B. Airbnb is lapping its largest viable short-term rental competitor.
And they’re playing a far different growth game.
By all means, run BFCM ads. But maybe think about how you can think bigger for next year—without a bigger Meta budget.