The Background

We began with a fairly typical co-marketing request: incentivize consumers to book an Airbnb using PayPal during the holiday season (11/16-12/31/2015) with a $50 off coupon. The brief asked for a landing page describing the promotion, a display campaign and an introductory email blast. The goal was to attract 2,000 bookings during this promotional period, ultimately providing $100K of value to joint users of PayPal and Airbnb.

The objectives were clear; however, the incentive was pretty small. The highly cluttered holiday season left this promotion little chance to stand out and be successful. PayPal and Airbnb had to think beyond the holiday, beyond the promotional discount, and instead, alongside their consumers. We saw this as an opportunity to drive a change in consumer behavior. As we dug deeper into the audience for both brands, we uncovered a truth that united them: they believe experiences were better when shared with others. This led us to a more ambitious brief and a bigger solution: Meet Halfway.

Understanding the Overlapping Target

Adventure was the keyword. These people didn’t just travel, they sought unusual, distinctive experiences. Experiences that enriched their lives, opened up new possibilities and above all, helped them connect with the people they valued. As active as they were online, they were firm in the belief that experiences were better when shared. So, we looked deeper and noticed a key truth about our majority audience: they have moved away from home and have lots of friends living in different cities. Thus, they’ve replaced in-person interactions with texting and video chatting. This knowledge led us to find our mission and our breakthrough strategy. We would give these on and offline adventurers what they treasured most: a story.

Changing the Brief

The original ask was to encourage consumers to gift themselves with a respite from the holidays during this busy season. When they booked an Airbnb using PayPal, they would receive a $50 credit toward their next Airbnb stay. The deliverables requested were a promotional landing page, display campaign and an email blast from PayPal. Like most consumers during this time of year, the joint PayPal/Airbnb audience would likely be targeted by many other advertisers focusing on the hectic nature of the holiday season. But knowing what we knew about them, that message seemed too expected. Our first step was to change the brief and alter the promotion. We knew we could achieve the objective of getting 2,000 Airbnb bookings purchased with PayPal, even if we came at it from a different and better angle. Giving consumers instant gratification by making the $50 credit redeemable immediately would also sweeten the promotion. Opening up the brief enabled us to think beyond a typical co-marketing promotion and create a utility. 

Creating Meet Halfway

Our unique social tool detected the user’s location, and upon entering in a friend’s name and city, the algorithm revealed their halfway point. From there, up to two more friends could be added and a new halfway point was automatically recalculated. It worked for any city in the world, and if the halfway point was in the middle of nowhere, the site adjusted to find the nearest civilized meeting place. By pulling in the coordinates of the location served, users could then be directed to a pre-populated Airbnb page, displaying the available listings in that area. Users then had the option to share their halfway point with friends by way of a customized Facebook post. Each received a custom design that included a pin drop to their halfway location and the names of each of their friends. Facebook friends could then click back to the halfway reveal and find the same pre-populated search to assist in planning the trip, or they could create their own halfway search. And of course, when they checked out with PayPal, they enjoyed $50 off their stay.

How It "Technically" Worked

We wanted to encourage friends in cities all over the world to Meet Halfway, even if there was an ocean between them. To do this, we created several algorithms to find the midpoint, and then we implemented a work back to the nearest coastline. To ensure a good experience, the tool selected the nearest city with a population of at least 20,000 people. From there, we dropped visitors at the best possible Airbnb search results. The video-share-to-Facebook functionality was executed seamlessly, enabling under a 3-second render time so thousands of consumers could share their unique video simultaneously.

Moving Beyond the Original Media Ask

We had to look beyond the requested display buy to promote the Meet Halfway tool. Media needed to create visibility and drive usage among our target. To do that, we focused on 3 key things:

1. Tell people what we’re doing

2. Show people the benefits of the tool

3. Drive people to the experience and share it

To tell people about the partnership, we positioned ourselves in long-distance conversations via Skype and met people with video in premium content places across Vice, Hulu, Thought Catalog, YouTube, and social. Takeovers and custom articles about the tool ran across sites like Gothamist, Flavorpill, The Verge, Bustle, and Vice, and we leveraged our partners’ social handles to speak the word a bit more organically. To show consumers the excitement in finding and exploring a new halfway point, we sent editors from TimeOut, American Y’all, and Escape Brooklyn to meet some friends halfway in cities such as Nashville and Denver. Their trips were chronicled across personal blogs, social media, and publisher sites, highlighting their Airbnb, the PayPal offer, as well as the benefits of meeting in the middle: food, friends, and exploration. We even launched a new city section on Thrillist about Savannah for a limited time, which covered not only the editor’s trip but 5 additional articles about the best places to eat/drink/explore in the city. On top of all of this activity, we turned to highly targeted, efficient, traffic-driving buys across native and social to close the loop and guide users to the site. We made sure that these tactics got smarter over time, by testing multiple targets and platforms across the almost 2-month campaign.