The idea had no funding and no team. The deck I built got it both.
Immersive sound can transport someone to a place. We used it to sell what travel actually does, transcend difference and connect people, so more of them would step into the unfamiliar with curiosity instead of fear.
ROLe
Concept · Strategy · Design · Production Partner Direction · Funding Pitch
COMPANY
Airbnb, in-house
SCOPE
Podcast prototype · Strategy and positioning deck
The problem
Nobody had asked for this. Airbnb's own data showed over 45% of interactions involve a host and guest who do not speak the same language, and that where language is not the barrier, religion, politics and race still are. It was the most interesting thing the company knew about itself and nothing was being made from it.
What I did
Built the case before the thing. With a writing partner I sought out internal experts across media, publishing, policy, the story archive and production, and turned what we learned into the strategy and positioning deck that got leadership to fund a prototype: what the podcast was worth, where people would encounter it, and how it fit the experience cycle that brings people back to the app to book travel.
Chose the partner who could make it sound like being there. I ran the full production partner search, requests, treatment reviews and selection, and the prototype came back with environmental sound design doing the heavy lifting rather than narration.
Pitched it as a platform, not an episode. The deck proposed bringing Airbnb Mag in as a companion, tag-teaming onto stories they were already running to capture extra audio, video and photography, and building a digital campaign around each entry.
Impact
An unfunded idea became a funded, produced prototype
The strategy and positioning deck is the artifact that moved the money
The document that got it funded: what the podcast was worth, where people would encounter it, and how it brought listeners back to the app to book travel.
Episode 1
We sent a writer and a production partner to a village hours outside Tokyo, for a story Airbnb Magazine had already published. When Alzheimer's took her husband's memory and shrank her life, Michiko Katsuse opened her doors. The house became known as The Ninja Mansion, and she flourished. (Photographs by Cait Oppermann for Airbnb Magazine)
Episode 2
Given our tight timelines and limited budget, we wanted to capture a story that was very close to the Airbnb brand—The 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California's Butte County was the most destructive wildfire in California history. Airbnb hosts opened their hearts and homes to displaced families and animals, aiding in rescue and recovery efforts. (Photographs from Wikipedia and Getty.)
