How do we turn non-travelers into users of Airbnb in their own cities?

During Chinese New Year, this campaign acknowledged a specific group of people who are not returning for family reunion during the Chinese holiday.

Based on travel trends and Airbnb's travelers data, a strategy has been developed to target millennial's retired family members instead: "When you can't go home, home comes to you."

Our campaign spoke to a whole new audience group, which consisted of millions, to grow our business, that would be only been relevant to audiences who were planning holidays.

Compared to Christmas, Chinese New Year (CNY) is China’s most emotional season and the best opportunity for Chinese to express their love to their family. Reunion is the main topic. However, many stay home.

How can Airbnb use this occasion to connect with an audience who weren't planning to travel for family reunion, and allow them to embrace the brand naturally, not only for its offerings but for a unique emotional benefit: a new kind of reunion.

In 2019, there were over 3 billion trips during Chinese New Year. But for millennials, this annual trip is in decline, as they are not following the tradition of going back to their hometown anymore.

Those who have migrated to the big cities are accustomed to their career and responsibilities, they have become less inclined to undertake the long trip back home for their yearly reunion. Much to their own and their family’s heartbreak.

For Airbnb this meant less travelers, but also, less people feeling at home during this season. Airbnb wanted to create a new kind of reunion with our offering.

Surprisingly our data showed a new trend, instead of the children coming home for CNY, there was an increase of parents leaving their hometown and traveling to their millennials or meet midway. These family members grew more flexible in time over the years, and have lead less stressful lives than their children in the big cities, especially when they are retired.

It’s a new CNY phenomenon called “reverse travel”. As Airbnb stands for Belonging, we strategized our new role – if you can’t go home, home comes to you.

To educate audiences on the novel idea of reversal of homecoming to local audiences, we created a story inspired by an authentic Chinese custom of hanging a “Fu´” poster in households, the character means “happiness”. During CNY this hangs everywhere.

The unique part of this ancient ritual is that it is always turned upside down. In Chinese, upside-down is “Dào”, which has the double meaning of “arrival”, thus bringing a different meaning to the square poster: “the arrival of happiness”.

Through an emotional animated film that went viral, we told the story of a young nurse whose pursuit of her career dreams in the big city prevents her from returning to her hometown.

Instead, her parents surprised her by booking a big Airbnb home next to her dorm, to celebrate their CNY, tying in to the overall campaign idea of turning traditional concepts on their head.

Through an integrated campaign that included social media, events, OOH, cinema, customized in-app integration, and also an IP partnership with China’s biggest entertainment platforms BiliBili we built intrigue and curiosity to finally launch the main film.

The campaign got over 824 million impressions, with 8.1million unique visitors to our travel platform to explore a new way to reunite for Chinese New Year.