BA (Hons) Visual Communication / Arts University Bournemouth
You can’t attract and retain great people if your sole purpose is to make money, because people, especially young people, want a sense of belonging—to be part of an organization they really believe is doing great work. You can’t create that emotional attachment if you stand for nothing.
Howard Schultz - Starbucks CEO
A winning submission for Airbnb’s #OneLessStranger competition to capture inventive ways to meet a stranger.
In our everyday life we see a lot of people, most of them are just passerby, to whom we don’t give any attention. Not even something as simple as a warm smile. Our idea was to break these distances in our lifes, if even for only a few moments. We decided to give away balloons, to which we attached a short message encouringing people to look arround them and to find a person with a matching balloon. After they met they were encouraged to join in our made up living room on the bridge which simbolizes connectivty. We offered tea and biscuits. Then we invited them to write up a positive message for the world.Pairs of balloons were sent up into the air delivering their messages to the other strangers who they haven’t yet met.
This is a great idea because unlike some other entries this gives people something in common to focus on, the relationship then is focussed on the similarity of the balloon rather than the question of similarities and differences between the two strangers. If you think about a job or a football team people from different backgrounds and cultures come together under one focussed concept of the job/business or football team.
It also is a good ice breaker and that would be the thing to overcome when you meet a stranger, the idea of strangers is mainly to do with the fact that people don’t know how to or feel confident approaching strangers and this is why I prefer this type of idea rather than the give something to a stranger because that’s more like charity, this is more aligned with the values of collaborative consumption where you are sharing value, united under a common goal to share.
We are always experimenting with new ways to create meaningful experiences on Airbnb
New Blood Entry — Be Someone Else
Airbnb / 2015Travel to any city around the world not just to belong, but also to live another version of yourself. Unlock the gates of a French castle, sail over the seven seas on a majestic yacht or escape to a treehouse in a castaway island.
Introducing the Be & Be feature, a new way to book a place on Airbnb. Instead of choosing where you want to go, pick who you want to be. You can browse through ‘Featured Beings’ to see the top visited destinations or search to your heart’s desire.
This is very similar to my other idea where we now live in an age where lifestyle can dictate who you want to become, you can buy into other ways of living as consumers and create a diifferent identity to the one that your tribe and community assigns to you. Before when we lived in communities everybody had their place and their role to play, whether you chose it or not… that was a pretty fixed way of being, hierarchies existed and the rich nobility would live in the castles etc, you wouldn’t have an opportunity to live that way of life.
The great thing with Airbnb is you can belong anywhere and that means that you can try different ways of living for a short amount of time which is great because if you were curious about what it felt like to live in Paris as a Parisian you can now buy in to that and test it out.
Travel has always been about self-discovery but now with Airbnb you can get inside a culture and experience it as a local person relatively easily and therefore this opens it up to more than just the hardened traveler, it enables the average person to particiapte in a menaingful experience that has the potential to be transformative.
With collaborative consumption you are in control of creating your own lifestyle away from the predefined categorisation of marketing and business, in the past they have been in control of the creation of meaning but now we can create our own and discover our own individual meaning about who we want to be and the kinds of meaning we want in our lives, businesses quite often want us to buy products that don’t enhance our life but yet they are sold to us as if they will.
(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxWu63BrwM0)
Published on 19 May 2015
The Airbnb Art House is a surrealist environment entirely fantasized, realized, and hosted by a group of 11 international artists. From March 13 to 15, guests visited the Art House to connect and relax by day, and enjoy uniquely created performance projects by night. Each night’s performance was a collaboration between performance and multimedia artists who together explored the hosting culture in Asia and elaborated on the notion of “Belonging” through their pieces.
Creativity is part of Airbnb’s DNA and its mission is to unlock places around the world where it’s never before been possible to stay. Airbnb is creating the Art House as a place to cultivate and celebrate moments of belonging between strangers.
This video is an overview of the design work that went in to make this project come to life.
Marriott Hotels Boldly Envisions the Future of Travel
Launches “Travel Brilliantly” Campaign, Engaging Next Generation Guests
BETHESDA, MD – (June 17, 2013) – Reflecting the transformative change happening at its properties, the iconic Marriott Hotels, the signature brand of Marriott International, Inc. (NYSE:MAR), today launched a new multi-year global marketing campaign. Called “Travel Brilliantly,” it is a bold move amplifying the brand’s dedication to leading the future of travel. The dynamic campaign reflects the lifestyle of the next generation of travelers, who seamlessly blend work and play in a mobile and global world. The campaign includes TV, digital and mobile advertising, a new brand look and logo, and enhanced social media platforms. In addition, Marriott is launching a new website – www.travelbrilliantly.com –revealing innovations under development, as well as a co-creation platform to solicit user-generated ideas.
At its core, the campaign disrupts the traditional industry idea that a hotel is bound by its four walls. Rather, the campaign shifts the focus, celebrating how the global travel experience opens minds and is inspirational. As the advertising proclaims, “This is not a hotel. It’s an idea that travel should be brilliant… It’s not only about where you’re staying. It’s about where you’re going.” From culinary to design to technology, the new campaign draws on the personal passion points and values of the next generation guest, to create a visual that is emblematic of the new Marriott experience.
(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ykvO8UN3g0)
Published on 30 Mar 2015
A park can be a place, a passion or a state of mind. People all around America are finding their park every day. So get up. Get out there. Find your park. It might be closer than you think. Learn more at http://findyourpark.com.
Relating stories from the past and experiences people have in order to generate a sense of belonging within people that explains how people feel like they belong. Most importantly it relates the idea of you should ‘find your park’ which is what I wanted to convey with my Airbnb project that the individual can find experiences that enhance themselves and enable them to grow, to experience more than your surroundings can offer you, opening your mind.
They seem to care more about luxury than the experience of a traveler, people want to experience the culture they are visiting and that involves connecting with the culture you are visiting not the appeal of luxury which is pretty much available everywhere now, quite a commodity.
(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp9tOHqw78k)
Published on 3 Apr 2015
Open up a world of possibilities and discover everything travel has to offer with Marriott Hotels. Let your room revolve around you, use the Marriott Mobile App as your personal concierge, and experience what’s next. Find out where you are going and let’s go together.Travel Brilliantly.
Marriott.com - http://travel-brilliant.ly/J1kI7w
Marriott Hotels on Facebook - http://travel-brilliant.ly/2wGX6H
Marriott Hotels on Twitter - http://travel-brilliant.ly/2BwDqs
Marriott Hotels on Instagram - http://travel-brilliant.ly/hXqE8H
Marriott Hotels on Pinterest - http://travel-brilliant.ly/6oQIlT
CR Blog: Airbnb launches floating house on the Thames
Airbnb has launched a floating house on the River Thames to promote its lettings website to homeowners in the capital. The charming building features two bedrooms, a bathroom and grassy garden complete with an apple tree and dog house…
Designed by TBWA creative directors Steve Tidball and Nick Tidball, the brightly coloured building is described as “Primrose Hill meets Pixar”. Inside, it features a working bathroom, pastel bedrooms and a sunny yellow kitchen and lounge kitted out with mid-century style furniture. The building will be cruising along the Thames until May 22, hosting events in Chelsea, Westminster and Canary Wharf before making its final stop at Putney Pier.
This is what I was thinking about things that don’t belong in places, it’s kind of the bridge between discovering new and unique places that essentially in terms of bookable accomodation aren’t really a part of our expectations, we have fixed in our minds that corporations provide hotels that all look a certain way and that to stay in somebody’s house is kind of finding a place that doesn’t belong. Also, my idea about who decides where people belong, whether a certain type of person belongs in a place is kind of like deciding whether something fits in or stands out judged by appearance.
The idea of taking an object and placing it anywhere increases peoples curiosity about things, life can be filled with sameness and homogenised experiences.
It’s also a kind of metaphor about our postmodern global culture where a person can uproot themselves and their traditional cultural roots and restyle themselves with a vision of how they want to be and I believe they call that lifestyle? You are effectively transferring yourself to another place that is essentially out of place and therefore you don’t belong there, unless of course, you decide that you do belong there and therefore that’s creative and requires the ability to be open-minded.
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
George Bernard Shaw
BA (Hons) Visual Communication / Arts University Bournemouth
